


Ever the Strange Case

by DAngeles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), Crossover, Eye of Agamatto, John is done, M/M, PTSD discussions, Wong is a Good Bro (Marvel), a lot of mandalas, also flirty!john huhuhuhu, everett is just HAWT, find all my sherlock references, jealous boys lmao, mentions of Tony Stark because im a weak bitch, mystic arts, sherlock the curious cat, sherlock versus magic, shipshipship, stephen is a sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 42,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DAngeles/pseuds/DAngeles
Summary: A strange case in which a piece of 'enchanted' paper decides to send Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson on their most inexplicable adventure yet.
Relationships: Everett Ross/Stephen Strange, Sherlock Holmes & Everett Ross, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Stephen Strange/John Watson
Comments: 65
Kudos: 163





	1. Address

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all!  
> Thanks to a prompt nudge, from a dear friend, that sent me reeling in the direction of this odd quartet pairing, this fic is a product of ten minute sessions of writing scattered across three months, punctuated by three intense days of editing that nearly killed me, so I hope readers can kindly excuse any irregular blobs of character oopsies and typos.  
> Feedback and reviews are much appreciated!  
> Cheers!

"That’s odd."

Sherlock and John peered at the plaque.

The two men stood outside what looked like an apartment door that was handsomely decorated and out of odds being in a street having no activity. The apartment number embossed in cursive gold sat upon the plaque framed with intricate gothic carvings. The plaque itself was perched on the door that looked way too grand to be where it was.

John looked down at the small rectangular piece of yellow parchment paper that led them there. 

_'177A Bleecker Street'_ it said, in cursive black ink, the paper wedged in Sherlock's hand.

"This could be some sort of a prank," John supplemented in an attempt to make something of their dubious situation, “Maybe someone just taking the new tourists for a spin.”

John turned to look at Sherlock who was already deducing the large door; he probably knew the very tree it was made from and the carpenter who affixed it there, going by the way his bright blue eyes were whizzing across its surface.

The said detective made a noise of wonderment.

"John, something's odd about this."

"Yes, you mentioned that."

"Do you feel that? A sense of disassociation?"

John looked at him sceptically; his eccentric companion was doing that _thing_ again, where he'd talk out loud more to himself than to John, and the patient doctor was left to his own devices to judge who exactly the recipient of his stream of thoughts was.

John shrugged, clueless.

"All I'm feeling is my time wasted; we could be out and about in the city like normal tourists rather than explore an ambiguous address on a small piece of paper that happened to sit on your luggage. For all we know, it could have flown in from the window, you hardly ever close it, Sherlock.”

John noticed that his friend wasn’t even paying attention.

“Sherlock??"

The detective wasn’t even looking at him.

"Oh, John," Sherlock mumbled after a few moments, as he studied the gold detailing on the door and made to knock on the wood, "I hardly think the paper had fingers to open my suitcase and seat itself inside. It was placed, to be found by us. Particularly by me."

"Right," John mumbled back. He could almost feel Sherlock's eyes roll in his sockets.

This was his life now; Mycroft sending them to New York on a covert case which they victoriously solved, only to be awoken at the arse crack of the next morning by a wild Sherlock gesticulating as he strung on about a piece of paper and the odd properties of it that he deduced probably by sniffing it ten ways. An hour afterwards, following a hasty breakfast, they were out searching for one ' _Bleecker Street_ ' in Greenwich Village, New York, and there they were, on a case they didn't know even an ounce about at all, and John didn’t even know if it should be called a 'case' in the first place.

John decided a more appropriate phrase would be an ' _American treasure hunt_ '.

_Has somebody actually sent them on a treasure hunt?_

A sharp knock sounded, making John look up from the expensive looking plaque; Sherlock's hands were already rapping on the wood of the door.

There was no answer.

A small shove later, and without a moment’s hesitation, Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes was stepping through the door at the threshold in a flurry of long coat, his companion Doctor John Watson at his heel.

"Whoever it is, they better have the kettle boiled," John groaned, rubbing across his face, tired and a little out of sorts from last night's celebratory drinks. He could have sworn he felt an odd buzzing in his navel just as he stepped over the door.

Once they crossed the threshold, John knew something was immediately wrong.

Brows furrowed, they looked around in awe.

The space they had stepped into was far too big to be located in the street of its size. The expanse of the interiors looked like an old fashioned, well-maintained museum, and a very large, handsome staircase extended up in front of them, bifurcating to the left and right at a spacious landing.

The double height of the space made for an imposing volume; the air was heavy with a musk of antiquity, all mysterious, musty yet mystical at the same time.

"What the _bloody_ hell," John exclaimed softly under his breath.

To John’s right, Sherlock was buzzing with both unbridled excitement and surgical caution, his quick steps echoing as he studied the nearest artefact housed in a bulletproof glass box.

John blinked; he was sure that the vase to his own left was glowing in short intervals. He looked away and then back. He then peered into the darker innards of what could be corridors leading away from the large space that didn’t touch light.

"Sherlock, that feeling of disassociation you were talking about? I second on that now."

"Hmm," came the offhanded noise as Sherlock's tall frame bent over the intricate base of another artefact. His Belstaff coat dipped at the hem as his long, nimble fingers held the retractable magnifying glass poised over the handsomely aged etchings.

"Fascinating. Never seen anything like this. None at all. The hand carved etchings don't look European even. Could be from far east, maybe China. But it's far too precise, as if done by a machine, but the age on the gold is betrayed by the dull weathering, hence, cannot be from an era of machinery."

His blue eyes were whizzing maniacally across his dark surroundings like bright, blue laser dots, taking in and storing all the new visual information for his Mind Palace.

But before Sherlock could dive into said Palace to fish for any prior stored information that could supplement his visual data, John's voice floated from his right.

" _For fuck’s sake!!_ "

Sherlock spun around..

“John!" Sherlock shot a surprised look at his doctor, "What's gotten into you?!"

But John looked back at him with that familiar, innocent look of dubiousness; he looked as startled as Sherlock, he seemed to have been examining a glass box caging a vase that was so polished it seems to be glowing.

"I... I didn't ... That wasn’t me, Sherlock."

Straightening their backs, both men froze simultaneously, registering the fact that they'd just heard a voice that was distinctly the exact same as John's, and it had come from the corridor to Sherlock’s right, as opposed to where John stood, which was to Sherlock's left.

They turned to the gaping darkness of said corridor that gave away nothing except disappearing walls and doors.

"Are we sure this isn’t a prank?" John huffed low, eyes sweeping around, his experienced instincts triggering him to a decorum of immediate alarm and ready.

Sherlock was excited now, muttering as he thought aloud.

"An address sent to me, for me to pursue. A recording of you swearing, in something of an American accent. Why? The client knows us, personally, spied on us, in fact, gathered voice clippings. The last time you swore like that I-"

"You set my shirt on fire while you were roasting one of the human tongues you nicked from Barts, thank you for that reminder. But Sherlock, that voice was not mine; when did I ever have an accent like that?!"

"You’re right, John," Sherlock breathed as he peered into the darkness of the corridor from which he heard the voice, "Accents can be fabricated but it's not a recording; there isn't a distinct grain in the audio, and no hitch of a pause."

He took a step towards the corridor.

Immediately, they heard a flurry of heavy footsteps, sure footed and proceeding with purpose, sounding louder as it seemed to come right towards them.

John's hand zipped behind himself, feeling for the Service Pistol tucked into his belt and against his spine. Sherlock posed in a defensive stance, a hand in the pocket of his Dolce and Gabbana under his large Belstaff coat, where sat a Taser.

They held their breaths, and a murmuring voice accompanied the angry footsteps on the ancient but sturdy wooden floorboards.

"Seriously, I don't get paid enough for this shit! Why do I have to deal with this! Send me back to Wakanda, I swear. The _hell_ do they need so many unnamed rooms for, have these guys ever heard of footlights?! I'll be damned if my toe hasn't fallen off my foot, that fucking stone pillar can go fuck itself. When I find Strange, I'm gonna give him a piece of my- THERE you are!!"

A short figure walked into the light seeping from the window over the landing on the staircase. Quick, measured strides brought the man right into the flood of its brightness.

Sherlock and John both seized a breath.

The impatient man standing there with his hands akimbo on his hips was, without doubt, John. Or, a startling likeness of John, but he was groomed all different.

His hair was a wash of silvery grey, the front of it sweeping back from his forehead in a wave, the hair shorter elsewhere, very professionally so. His face was hard in a mask of annoyance; a haughty look of impatience that suited more to Sherlock's daily temperament, while seen rarely on John.

Dressed in an expensive, dark grey suit and shiny, black shoes, with a glint of a flawlessly polished watch at his wrist, the well-groomed man huffed as he continued, "Next time, I'm not going to be walking around like a dumbfuck through the maze of your mansion, Strange, I'll be shooting the roof off this house to get your attention if you don't give me a map or – wait," he recoiled, "Why are you dressed like that?!"

There was a pause as the man considered Sherlock carefully; deep, blue eyes sweeping over his garb with the efficiency of a scanner. He stepped closer as if confused, a frown upon his brow.

He seemed to have not seen John yet, since he was a bit removed.

The man moved until he was a good six feet away, unyielding eyes now taking in Sherlock's hair and coat.

"Who the hell are you dressed as? What happened to your hair and your beard? Decided on a makeover?" he quipped.

The very next second his eyes swept aside and caught the sight of John.

The man’s face slackened and his pupils dilated, the reaction instantaneous; almost immediately, everyone sprang into action, one after the other in rapid succession.

The man, with lightning reflex that amazed even Sherlock, whipped out a sleek, sophisticated gun, pointing it directly at John, who in that very moment pulled out his more modest weapon to point back at him. And since Sherlock had nothing on him to point with, except maybe a few choice remarks he'd deduced off the man's attire, he raised his arms obediently in a surrendering gesture, while also calculating the nearest escape route and easiest modifiable weapon he could fashion with the things around him.

The man seemed smart; he whizzed his gun onto Sherlock to thwart his thought process, narrowing his eyes on him in full alert, he then shot a side glance at John.

"Drop your weapon and nobody gets hurt," the man spoke calmly, eyes like blue steel over the strong grip on his gun, his voice distinctly American but also very distinctly John's. Sherlock was beyond fascinated, really.

"Likewise," John hissed back, the very same voice, so British, it was almost laughable, this situation.

"Identify yourself," The man asked John, eyes taking careful sweeps over John's frame dressed modestly in his jeans and plaid shirt under his simple brown jacket. He was scanning, assessing, deducing.

And John, ever the righteous man, spoke with immovable stability, "Doctor John Watson, formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, pleased to make your acquaintance."

The man looked a little taken aback.

Sherlock's mouth betrayed a smirk of mirth causing the man to focus on him instead, gun poised.

"And I'm guessing you're not Strange."

Sherlock shrugged. "I’ve been called many things; some prefer the term ' _freak_ ' actually. I'd prefer ' _peculiar_ ', don't you, John?-"

" _Identify yourself_ ," the man hissed sharply, cutting him short and making Sherlock twitch back a bit. The harsh, gritty edge was unfamiliar in John's familiar voice and Sherlock couldn't deny that it was interesting.

"And I'm guessing you didn't send us the paper?" Sherlock supplied.

The lack of recognition on the man's face was all he needed for confirmation.

" _Identify. Yourself. NOW_." The man took one step forward. Sherlock stayed in place, and John took a step closer in response.

"I’m Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, both private and for the Scotland Yard," he spoke in his usual drawl, his mouth opening again to set off a soliloquy before he was interrupted.

" _What?!_ "

Sherlock was no stranger to derogatory reactions concerning himself; he had received from absolute ignorance to pure irritation in the colourful spectrum of negative responses. But he couldn’t help but frown curiously at the man’s look of slight bewilderment which, after a blink of disbelief, immediately transitioned into absolute annoyance.

"You think this is a joke? Seriously?” the man barked suddenly, gesturing between the two of them with his gunpoint, "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson? You think I'm buying that?!"

John and Sherlock shared a look of scepticism.

Sherlock pursed his lips, “We have no clue about what you're implying, but its quite rude to have your guests introduce themselves without actually tell them who you are-"

" _Zip it_ , smarty, one more word out of you that’s not a direct answer to my questions and you'll regret it."

"I’m sorry, I can't really allow that," John added, in that quite pleasant faux tone of politeness, that Sherlock almost laughed, and the man caught his mirth for the second time, making him more ruffled.

John cleared his throat to get the man's attention away from the detective; Sherlock was seriously going to get them both killed one day.

"Listen, we are as baffled as you are about the obvious elephant in the room – _not now, Sherlock_ \- so it would really help if you told us who you are."

"I’m not telling you anything till you tell me your real identities."

"We just did. I’m John Watson, and that's my friend and colleague Detective Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps you've heard of us, we solve otherwise unsolvable criminal cases. Someone wanted us to come here, to 177A Bleeker Street, so here we are."

"Do I actually look like an _idiot_ to you?"

"I would have proved the authenticity of our identities to you but unfortunately I didn’t carry my birth certificate on my person today."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow as the man let out the hollowest chuckle of exasperation, which he'd seen John once emit when he'd been in an argument with Sherlock over the placement of frozen Human Kidneys near the Toaster. It hadn't ended well; Sherlock had ended up nursing an icepack where one of said frozen Kidneys was flung at his face.

John used his most serious and sturdiest tone as he reflected the question, "Identify _yourself_ , please."

There was a moment of contemplation, probably realising their conversation was going in painful circles, the man pulled open the lapel of his suit jacket to show his badge as he spat out, "Agent Everett Ross, former Pilot and Deputy Task Force Commander, current CIA Operative," and he quickly dropped his hand to regain grip on his gun.

Sherlock’s eyes shone a sudden flash as he took in the title; the creases on the man’s shirt to the very gel he used in his hair spoke volumes to supplement his designation and Sherlock all but swallowed a remark on his attractive physical attributes.

"What’s a CIA Operative doing in an obscure but luxuriously endowed antique museum in Greenwich Village?" Sherlock asked instead, drawing out his words and watching Everett's face dance with twitches.

"Alright, play times over, I'm getting reinforcements," he stated in finality. He turned his face over his shoulder, never once letting Sherlock or John out of his sight, as he yelled "Strange! STRANGE!!"

"Yelling about the quality of this situation isn't going to make it any less odd, Agent Ross."

" _Shut up,_ " came that hiss again, making Sherlock recoil ever so slightly in its wake.

"Stephen!!!" Everett yelled again and a moment later, as if in last resort, he seemed to be reaching for his walkie-talkie hitched to his belt.

Suddenly, there was a new voice and this time both Sherlock and John nearly snapped their necks in time to look up at the landing in the staircase. The deep timbre of the amused tone was undeniable.

"Lost your way again, Agent Ross?"

A blotchy, black silhouette appeared as if materialising from the shadows. It looked like a wide yawning of floating cloth, but a groomed head sat atop, a pair of floating feet in boots below.

It was a man in a cape with collars turned upright. But he wasn't walking down the stairs; he was gracefully and effortlessly gliding down it, as if it were an ice slope. The corners of the cape seemed to flutter oddly at his sides as if in a nonexistent wind, a glow of red outlining where the sunlight from the window behind illuminated its fabric and the head full of shiny black hair.

As the figure floated like a ghost down the stairs, Sherlock peered for rigs and wires that was probably supporting this man's dramatic descent, and he’d be lying if he didn't appreciate the show being one for the touch of drama himself.

But that _voice_.

"Sherlock?" John hissed in concern from his side. Sherlock glanced at John and nodded in confirmation of the unasked question.

It was his own voice, like John's, tainted in that American accent. It was odd on his ears but not unfamiliar; he'd tried many a hand at disguising himself, and adapting accents came with it. _A recording, then?_ No; he may have uttered those few words separately at some point in his life, enough for it to be collected and put together, but this wasn’t how he spoke. He was sure of it.

Once the man reached the foot of the stairs, he moved towards Agent Ross, but his shadowed angular face was directed at Sherlock and John with undying attention.

Both doctor and detective had an idea of what they would see once light fell on the tall man's features as he stilled next to a visibly bristling Agent Ross.

And then like a revelatory curtain raise, his face was lit in the same light washing the shorter man.

There he was, Sherlock's likeness, his doppelganger as they would say, all pale-skinned with high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes that saw beyond what they let on.

Setting him apart from the detective was his hair which, unlike Sherlock's unruly wild curls, was austerely brushed back, a slightest curl falling over a chiselled forehead as if unable to help itself. Streaks of silvery white flanked the shorter hair at the sides of his head lending him an aged yet wise demeanour, supplemented by the facial hair trimmed with surgical precision and impeccable symmetry.

What he wore looked something out of a storybook; he was dressed in layered, blue robes with dark leather belts and tassels hanging off them. Sherlock narrowed his eyes at the cloak that was surely being puppeteered by some elaborate string and pulley system, but it was almost believably alive and twitching, like a pet draped across the man's shoulder while judging Sherlock and John as much as the man himself was. The collar of the red cloak was turned up and framed his angular face in an intimidating yet attractive fashion.

_So perhaps that’s what John was talking about, that one time from Baskerville._

Sherlock’s observational verdict of the man funneled down to ‘strict, intelligent and learned disciplinarian with a touch of good humour, and a traumatic past with signs of subdued narcissism.’

The man was studying Sherlock as intently as the later was him; he took in Sherlock's unruly, ebony curls, his narrow, cyan eyes, and his pale complexion. The man swept his gaze over the ramrod straight posture, the black business suit with the deep blue shirt fitted to his abdomen to flatter his bulk while simultaneously almost bursting at the buttons, and his cape-like Belstaff coat encasing his tall frame with its upright collars flanking the detective’s long neck much like his own red cloak. Sherlock stood with all the challenging confidence he usually had, and the man seemed to sense and acknowledge it.

The blue eyes of the mysteriously dressed man flickered to the side at John who was breathing patiently with the understanding that letting his confusion get the better of him wasn't going to supply to anything.

The man stood quietly with his hands clasped behind himself, back straight as an arrow and posture highly authoritative, cloak fluttering around him softly. A look of some conclusion was dawning in his expression.

"Lower your weapons. There’s no need to be armed. Let's all be civil here," the man spoke calmly.

The depth of the mysterious man’s baritone rolled across the air in a warm yet warning wave. Sherlock and John watched in surprise as the tightly strung Everett Ross obliged by lowering his gun-wielding arm carefully, but not before a generous pause, and John mirrored him in response, caution in the air between them thick enough to slice through.

"Who are our guests, Agent Ross?" the man asked calmly.

Everett, now more at ease, twitched his gun arm to motion at them with a lazy gesticulation, “As if the identity theft of our goddamn faces wasn’t bad enough, guess what these imposters are calling themselves."

The man blinked, waiting for Everett to supply.

"Meet ‘ _Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson_ ’," he took no pains to hide a scoff, before adding with a pained rub to his temple, "Christ, I haven't had enough coffee for this shit."

The man didn't seem as perturbed by the names as Everett was. Instead, he continued to stare down Sherlock; blue eyes on blue eyes, a clash of speculative deduction almost tangible in the air.

"You know us," Sherlock observed carefully, eyes pinned momentarily on the peculiar eye shaped medallion dangling against the man's chest, "You recognise our names, yet you don't associate our faces with it. And then there’s the matter of the doppelganger conundrum.”

Everett Ross was beside himself with the absurdity of it all. He turned to the tall man in the cloak and asked, “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of high-tech prank?”

Too impatient for an answer from Stephen, Everett turned back to Sherlock and John with a stern glare, and spoke with the air of authority, “Cough it up, who do you work for? Hydra? Stryker? Got your hands on some new kind of cloning technology? You think you can just walk around with our faces, and you’d go scott free?”

Ignoring Everett’s scathing look, Sherlock turned to the cloaked man.

"You know our names, and you seem to have a conviction of what we should look like, or in this case, _shouldn’t_ look like. If you’re assured that we are not Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, then who are they to you?”

More silence followed.

Everett sighed, "Strange?"

John nodded solemnly, "Quite, yes, actually."

Groaning, Everett rubbed at his temples, and turned to the bearded man again, his voice dropping low not for privacy but irritation, "I thought this was a secure facility, Stephen. How did these two get in here in the first place?!"

That seems to rouse the man out of his silence; a terrifyingly intimidating look seeped into Stephens’s expression, throwing shadows into the hollows of his angular face. Even Everett stepped back a bit, giving a knowing glance at the other two.

Flashing blue eyes scrutinised the detective and his blogger.

"This is indeed a secure facility, the location of which is a secret shared among us who protect this space and unless you were let in by one of us, you cannot enter. So how did you find this place?"

"We were provided the address by a mysteriously anonymous party," came Sherlock's calm reply, leveling his gaze.

"And how was this address provided to you?"

Sherlock reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out for display the small swatch of paper.

A look of instant recognition passed across the man's face as he stared at the paper Sherlock held up. The man’s knit eyebrows relaxed, and it broke his serious façade immediately.

"Well, I see."

"And what is it that you _see_?" Sherlock implored icily.

There was only silence as the man stared into the distance, just over Sherlock's shoulder.

"Stephen?" Everett's impatience rippled through the air.

Stephen gave him a calm smile, having fully understood the situation.

"Well, for one, they are telling the truth, Agent Ross. This is indeed Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson."

Everett looked at the taller man like he'd said something so scandalous it was incomprehensible. His deep blue eyes fluttered across the man's face to confirm what he'd just heard.

"Oh my God," Everett stepped back a bit, "You're actually serious."

"I’m afraid, yes," the man nodded solemnly, looking apologetically at him.

Everett looked at Sherlock and John like they were woodland creatures he had heard of but never seen before until now.

" _Jesus fucking Christ_ ," he breathed carefully, completely befuddled, "This is _actually_ them?"

"Yes."

"They're telling the truth?"

"Yes."

"They're not, you know, dressing up or anything?"

"Nope."

Everett’s lips stretched in an uncomfortable line across his face, as he tried to process the information given to him.

“And they’re not our clones or something?”

“No.”

“So, if this is Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, why are they dressed like that and why look like us in the first place??” he choked.

“That, I’m guessing, is the actual mystery, Agent Ross.”

The tall man let the silver haired agent a moment or two before turning his attention to the two Englishmen.

"Apologies for not introducing myself. I am Doctor Stephen Strange, the Sorceror Supreme and a guardian of three Sanctums located on Earth. You are currently standing in the lobby of my home which is also the Sanctum Sanctorum situated in New York." He gestured with a sweep of his eyes, the vast space they were in.

Neither Sherlock nor John blinked.

"A Sorceror,” John asked carefully, “You’re a _Sorceror?_ "

"Sorceror Supreme, but yes, a Sorceror nonetheless."

"As in, you, _perform_ , _magic??_ " John seemed to have great difficulty letting out the specific words.

Stephen pulled an expression of indecision as he tried to answer. "Well. The more accurate word would be 'practice'; we practice the Mystic Arts," he corrected delicately.

“Like wizards?”

“I’d still prefer ‘Master of the Mystic Arts’,” Stephen supplied, patiently.

“Master of the Mystic Arts...” John pressed on in disbelief.

“And you expect us to believe this?” Sherlock stated flatly, an eyebrow cocked up in debate.

Stephen gave him a cool smile. “We are Sorcerors who rid the world of mystical threats, Mr Holmes. It’s a lot, I understand, but it’s the truth.”

“And you’re a doctor?!” John blurted suddenly.

“I was a neurosurgeon.”

“A _neurosurgeon?!_ ” he breathed in bafflement, “You’re a doctor and now you’re claiming to be a sort of hero?”

“Not very unlike yourself, Doctor Watson,” Stephen said pleasantly, a ghost of a smile at the corner of his lips as he sent a subtle nod his way.

John blinked in surprise, a little taken aback, and a little charmed if he wasn't too darned to admit.

Sherlock sent his companion a sour, patronizing glance.

Stephen started, “I highly suggest we sit down to go over the current situation at hand before it reaches difficult-”

“What is to say that the two of you, Doctor Strange and Agent Ross, if those are even your real names, aren’t the identity stealers?” interrupted Sherlock, “How are we to know you are not duping us with this elaborate scheme? Luring us here to kidnap us and keeping us engaged with this fairytale, while stealing our identities, for some bigger plan?” Sherlock’s arms folded behind him in scepticism, his posture now very much mirroring Stephen’s stance.

“Well, you walked right into it, didn’t you?” Stephen’s amused smile radiated, utterly at ease while Sherlock stared at him with narrow eyes of scrutiny.

“So, you _did_ kidnap us!” John stated, accusatory.

“No, we didn’t!” Everett spat incredulously,

Letting out a soft sigh, Stephen spoke to stop the charades.

"Mr Holmes, Doctor Watson, you’d asked who ‘Sherlock Holmes and John Watson’ were to us. I know this is quite a bit for you to process, but it seems you leave me no choice but to dump all of it in one heap," he paused, making sure he had both their attentions, "You are both from an alternate Reality. Here, in our Reality, where you have been transported accidentally, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are, to put it technically, fictional characters. Hence, to us you do not physically exist beyond fiction, and that should explain Agent Ross' disbelief," he turned to cast Everett a look of amusement.

Everett, a hand on a hip, eyed both the Englishmen while contemplating.

Said Englishmen stared as if Stephen had just spoken a foreign language unbeknownst to them.

“We are _what_ , now?” John snapped, half indignant, half disbelieving. He looked at the detective for some semblance of sanity but he realised that the gears in Sherlock’s brain seemed to be whirring every which way, from behind unreadable eyes.

John knew what that meant.

Sherlock didn’t move. He then eyed an open artefact near his side; the protective glass box was open at the top, perhaps for maintenance, and judging the age and the delicate texture of its material, perhaps a kind of papyrus, he could estimate the importance of its antiquity.

_Kept for sentiment to the old era, not for its monetary weight. Peeling gold inlays indicate its value in terms of antiquity and historical significance, then. Will not be missed probably; hardly has any function besides being a visual reminder, given the amount of dust at the curling ends. But the tough glass shows its important enough to warrant alarm at any harm._

Sherlock’s eyes glinted in finality.

Everett turned to Stephen, "If they're from an alternate Reality, how did they get here? I’m guessing you don’t get to just cross dimensions through random, unguarded doorways."

"The piece of paper that reached them is how I brought Thor and Loki here a while back, to send them to their father Odin. That’s my handwriting in that paper and only those in contact with it can enter any Sanctum without me opening the door. I’m assuming Thor misplaced the paper between travel and it reached out to the nearest connectable being similar to me, hence, Sherlock."

John was exclaimed in a chortle, "Is this an actual, coherent conversation that we are having, gentlemen? Thor, the Nordic God of Thunder? Loki, the God of Mischief? Their father Odin?"

Another brief chuckle of disbelief burst out until he realised neither Stephen nor Everett were joining in on his mirth.

John cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Wait, wait a minute,” Everett blinked at the floor, before looking John straight in the eyes in alarm, “What are you guys doing _here_ , in New York, instead of London?!”

“We had just finished a case for one of the more avant-garde clientele of ours, hailing from the Big Apple. We leave in a day or so.”

A fresh pinch of frowns creased Everett’s face again.

“And what did this address look like from the outside?” asked Stephen.

John and Sherlock frowned at the odd question.

“Why should we tell you what your house looks like from the outside?”

“Please,” Stephen implored patiently, “What did it look like to you?”

Sherlock answered with unmasked scepticism, “Like an old apartment. The door was rather fancy for an otherwise mediocre building. You have an odd taste for exterior facade decoration. Or are you disguising the place to hide? Seems to be failing.”

Stephen nodded to himself.

“Yes, well, you see, this house is a three storied mansion with a beautifully detailed facade and a rather giant rose window outside, none of which you saw, because in the New York of your Reality this exact location is that of an old apartment. I’m assuming that after the paper reached you, you were curious, and pursued the address, and the moment you stepped into the apartment, you were transported here to our Reality, in the Sanctum Sanctorum, the subsequent location in our New York.”

Sherlock remained still and unmoving, not even blinking.

Stephen added, “So if you were step out of this house right now, and go to the address of your hotel, it might not be there at all, and could be replaced by another building altogether.”

John sucked in a breath unable to harness the intense suspension of disbelief that was required of him.

 _This is a very elaborate and detailed dream,_ John decided for the sake of his sanity, _maybe Sherlock slipped me some of that bloody cocaine of his._

"Okay," Everett sighed at Stephen, "So the magic in the paper sought him, because he looks like you. But why does this guy look like me?” he glanced pointedly at John, “I don’t remember sending out invitations that could potentially bring my doppelgangers across parallel universes?" Everett watched John who seemed to be having some kind of existential crisis.

"The Multiverse is a vast, sprawling expanse of multiple innumerable possibilities that cannot be calculated or predicted, Agent Ross. They are from one such dimension where apparently they not only look like us but also know each other."

"The fuck kind of coincidence -"

"There’s no coincidence,” Sherlock interrupted, “The Universe is rarely so lazy."

"Well put, Detective," Stephen nodded, “Every moment is a deliberate action that sets forward a path of its own influences.”

Sherlock observed Stephen with ten times the focus he usually used on people. John expected the man to catch fire under Sherlock's laser sight any minute now.

" _Fuck me_ ," Everett groaned, rubbing at the back of his neck in exasperation. "Okay then, Strange, send them back. They should be put back where they came from right? Their place in the goddamn Multiverse?"

Stephen opened his mouth to answer but Sherlock interrupted yet again.

"A Multiverse. You said _Multiverse_?"

"Yes. And infinite in number and possibilities. Perhaps in another dimension, we are fictional to its occupants while you are real. Perhaps in another we all are fictional. Right now, you aren't supposed to be here, but you are quite real and in the flesh, which is fine until you’ve overstayed your welcome and fractured our stream of Reality before is too late, so as Agent Ross so delicately put it, we better send you back home."

"And is that what the Sorceror Supreme does? Send wandering individuals back to their…’dimensions’?" came the sudden question from the detective, the scoff in his voice was gritty.

Stephen looked long and hard at Sherlock.

"Yes. As the Sorceror Supreme, I have many responsibilities, including sending lost wanders back to their dimensions and protecting the Earth from mystical threats," Stephen answered carefully.

"I assume that’s often?"

"Very much."

"Well. And we are ever the lost wanderers, aren’t we?"

"Yes. Lost in the wrong place at the right time."

“And you know how to send us back?”

“I know and can.” 

“Using the, what did you call it? The ‘Arts’?”

“The Mystic Arts, yes,” Stephen corrected again. “At this point you’re just repeating what has already been said but go ahead.”

"And when did it happen?"

"What did?"

"The injury of your hands?"

Stephen's eyes flared in a moment of weakness, well aware that his hands were behind his back and under the Cloak the entire time and Sherlock couldn't have seen.

There was a pregnant pause; the air suddenly thick in anticipation that seemed to vibrate from all sides.

"How did you know?" Stephen asked in a very calm and level voice.

"I didn't, but given your arms are flexing ever so slightly, I deduced that you’re hands have sustained some sort of injury that made you a creature of habit in flexing your fists perhaps in some form of therapeutic exercise you may have enrolled in a while back that you still practice today unconsciously, so thank you for confirming," Sherlock placated a reptilian smile.

Seeing his chance in the way he'd rendered everyone in the room speechless for a second, Sherlock immediately tugged his hand out from his suit pocket where he'd sneakily slipped mid conversation and pulled out his Taser in one quick motion, switching it on and enabling the manual lock for it to stay lit without pause, electric blue light illuminating the underside of his face and catching in the depth of his eyes. Before anyone could react, Sherlock flung the alit Taser towards the open artefact he had been eyeing earlier, knowing the sparks of the Taser would set its delicate paper on fire, while John, taking the cue he’d been waiting for, turned to bolt for the door.

Sherlock followed, swerving in a swish of coat to sprint after John, both failing to notice that Stephen hadn't moved a muscle and Everett just rolled his eyes instead of springing into action after them.

They managed to take approximately 10 steps towards the door until a sudden invisible force yanked them both to a stop, knocking air out of their lungs from the inertia of their run. Before they could even look at each other, they were hoisted up in a whirl of air. John struggled to return to the ground, but in vain. Sherlock frantically pawed at nothing, trying to apply the maximum of his intellect to figure out what technology was sweeping him off his kicking feet and taking him back towards the doppelgangers.

John gasped, almost choking on his own breath as they were propped back into place where they stood earlier, panting slightly, unable to move, not a limb cooperative. 

Sherlock tried to will his muscles to move but they didn’t. A form of nerve paralysis, he expected, but he was able to hold himself upright, as if an unseen force was holding his body hostage. A side along glance told him John was frozen too, thankfully unhurt.

They were unarmed and propped to stand upright like puppets with possibly some kind of thread that was surely too fine to be seen with the naked eye, and completely under the mercy of the two men.

Stephen Strange stared at them in such a cool, neutral gaze of indifferent amusement that it sent shivers up John's spine.

Everett's face was the perfect picture of smug.

The Sorceror Supreme watched them calmly.

"You are sceptical about us and it is beyond your capability to immediately understand the truth of what I have told you. I understand that whatever just happened was your ‘flight or fight’ responses kicking in for self-preservation and I applaud your bravery, in fact. But, try that again and I won't play nice; you did just try to set fire to the Tapestry of the Twelve Saints," Stephen’s face lit up in a very amused smirk.

Sherlock eyed his Taser floating in midair in front of Stephen, practically defying gravity. It just wasn't possible but it there it was, slightly bobbing in the air as if on the surface of water. And in a sudden moment, the Taser visibly crunched into itself, as if an invisible fist was crushing it like a soda can. Sparks of electricity buzzed as the device spit and squealed, mulched to an irregular scrap of metal and plastic, small bits falling off unceremoniously.

Slowly, before Sherlock’s very eyes, the pieces of his Taser melted away into thin air, thus theatrically displaying the extent of this man’s 'capabilities'.

Sherlock’s jaw twitched, his eyes whizzing between Stephen's. He controlled the rush of quick breathing that his lungs suddenly clawed for. His nostrils flared under his struggle.

“I don’t know what technology you are using but it is quite impressively realistic,” he supplied, a little breathless now.

“Don’t bother, snappy,” Everett looked almost sympathetic, “You wait till he makes you watch him reverse the process of the orange he peeled and ate.” There was a distant look in Everett’s eyes as he seemed to reminisce the experience, albeit squeamishly.

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” John gulped, trying to breathe calmly despite himself.

“It’ll take you a while, trust me,” Everett shook his head, “But its real. This Mystic Arts business, all real.”

There was movement from Stephen; he pulled out one hand from behind himself, holding it out in the direction of Sherlock, long, manicured fingers splayed.

They all watched as the small slip of paper with the address flew out of the pocket of Sherlock’s long, blue coat, and zipped with purpose to Stephen’s extended hand, and the man deftly caught the paper between two fingers.

The man’s hand caught the eye of both Sherlock and John.

Clearly seen were the several ridges of healed scars lining the skin atop Stephen’s hand, the smooth and slightly peach coloured scar tissue travelling up his long trembling fingers, around the skin of his knuckles and palms, small healed lacerations everywhere, and a tremor making his fingers shudder even as he casually held the paper which then suddenly disappeared into thin air.

“Car accident.” Stephen spoke solemnly, as if to answer Sherlock from earlier.

John’s eyes softened, as he felt his own defective left hand twitch as it does when he’s tensed or stressed. He tried to flex it involuntarily, licking his lips. He couldn’t fathom the predicament of a neurosurgeon with scars like that on his hands which spoke volumes about what the outcome of the car accident had been.

Empathy swathed him from the inside. His eyes met Stephen’s for half a second.

Sherlock, however, didn’t share that emotion.

“Put you out of business permanently, didn’t it?”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John hissed at him in exasperation, tearing his eyes off Stephen to look at him, “This man has us in some kind of body binding spell, so if you’d be so kind to think twice before you yap us away to oblivion!”

“Seriously, John, a _spell?!_ ” Sherlock scoffed in disdain at John’s choice of lingo, “Next you’d want a magic wand and a top hat to pull rabbits out of!”

“Cut it out!” Everett barked them to silence, “Strange, release them from whatever voodoo you’ve got going on,” he waved wildly at the state of the frozen men, “You literally said something about them being here fracturing Reality. Aren’t you supposed to be figuring out how to send them back to where they came from, for God’s sake!”

“Right,” Stephen sighed, and mumbled under his breath, “Uncooperative guests and all that.”

A sudden release of force made Sherlock and John stumble as the spell yielded, letting them free, their muscles now loose and airy after the robotic rigidity they were subjected to.

John flexed his left arm and looked at Stephen again. Sherlock picked at the parts on his coat where he’d felt the ‘force’ restrain him, relentless at finding hidden mechanisms that were fooling his observant eyes.

Stephen felt something akin to endearing sympathy for his doppelganger’s undying efforts.

“There are things you will not understand yet, Mr Holmes. You question the Mystic Arts, but once you understand how it is interlinked with the spirit of the body -”

“There is no such thing as _spirit!_ ” Sherlock hissed, “There is no magic, no mystic arts and no sorcery! There is _only_ Science, and cold logical reasoning!” his spitting words emphasised through harshly uttered syllables; he had reached the end of his limited patience, eyes like neon rebellion, haughtily challenging Stephen.

Rather than being offended, Stephen’s face shone in a sort of warmth as he remembered, from months ago, how he had been the one to scoff in the face of the Mystic Arts, his nerves bristling in front of the patient Ancient One, and now, it was full circle, for him as the Sorceror Supreme to face a confident, arrogant yet intelligent man of Science and Logic. 

He smiled, also remembering how, after being shown the extent of the Spirit, he had knelt all dirty and covered in grime, all scraggly unruly beard and pathetically trembling hands, looking up at the pristine, bald woman in mustard yellow, and whispering his feeble plea.

_Teach me._

Stephen smiled pleasantly.

“It is not for me to convince you, Mr Holmes. Right now, my sole responsibility as the Sorceror Supreme of our Reality is only to safely return you to yours. I advice you to not attempt deduce the Arts through the narrow lens of your understanding, because that would require way more time than we have currently. Now, let’s sit down for this at the library. It doesn’t need to be this hostile.”

There was a sudden rush of air, fluttering their clothes, tickling their hair, Sherlock and John seized with a momentary feeling of nausea due to an absurd pull at their navels, and the last thing John remembered amidst his lightheaded sway was the sight of Stephen smiling as everything went black in a blink.

\---


	2. Book

Sherlock and John groaned as they landed their behinds rather heavily onto the seats of softly upholstered armchairs. They pushed down nausea as their stomach turned, their heads swimming a little.

Blinking wildly, they realize they’ve been, for the lack of a better term, _‘transported’_ to a rather cosy corner in a spacious library.

Several shelves of tomes lined the walls and in endless rows of aisles. Many were old, ancient-looking books, John daresay spell books, and the lettering on the spines were foreign to his eyes. The older looking tomes seem to have a kind of metallic chain binding them.

_Was it to stop someone from taking them, or was it to stop the books from leaving?_

John blinked in dismay at odd ways he had allowed his own thoughts to wander.

The air was heavy with a dense combination of calm silence and soothing incense. They were currently sat at a handsome Mahogany table in a reading corner; Sherlock and John at one side, Stephen and Everett across from their counterparts at the other.

“And _how_ , Sherlock-," John whispered to his companion, needing a pause while a little out of odds himself, "- are you going to explain _that_ with Science and Cold Logic?” 

Sherlock’s face stilled in deep thought. “We’ve probably been drugged, John. Try and stay awake, and while you’re at it, ask numerous questions to resume any grip on reality.”

Just as John squinted at him, Stephen smiled pleasantly, “No, you haven’t been drugged, and rest assured we don’t intend to. Would you like a cup of tea?”

John was absolutely sure that the smooth, dark, wooden surface of the antique reading table was empty a moment ago, but suddenly there sat a tea set of beautiful, pristine white china adorned with delicate, hand-painted gold runes, consisting of two cups with their decorated saucers and a teapot steaming at the spout. There was a perspiring beer can next to Everett, also a sudden appearance.

Sherlock peered with curious scrutiny at the tea set.

Stephen took the liberty of reaching out and pouring Sherlock and John some of the tea.

The aromatic smell of familiar comfort filled John’s senses and he felt his muscles relax in ease despite the entirely unbelievable situation and the inexplicable company he was in. Deciding that he might as well make the best of it, he sank into the sinfully plush chair he was seated in after gently accepting the cup of tea Stephen handed out to him, an involuntary ‘thank you’ slipping from his lips in a sigh.

John watched, sipping his tea with confidence now, as Sherlock cautiously took his cup from Stephen, and sniffed at the tea, his nose probably scanning for any of the many poisonous toxins he had catalogued in his mental file of olfactory information.

Perhaps he didn’t find anything odd with it, because he gave in and gingerly sipped at the tea, scepticism in his blue eyes shining as he eyed Stephen, and for a moment the detective faltered; it was some undeniably _good_ tea.

John blinked down at his half full cup, licking his lips.

_Mrs Hudson has competition._

Everett was observing the detective and his doctor with a smirk of amusement as he sipped his cold beer.

“Now. Let’s clear some things,” Stephen clasped his shaking hands at the tabletop, where his long, trembling fingers visible for both to see, “The topmost priority at the moment is to send the two of you back to your correct Reality. Finding the exact temporal coordinates is going to be a little difficult, so please do bear with me if I ask for some cooperation from your end.”

“And what happens, if we do not return at all?” Sherlock asked, smacking his lips nimbly from the tea he couldn’t stop sipping at.

Stephen looked grim.

“Well. If you do not return to your Reality, it will fall apart from the lack of your presence, which would upset the balance of natural events, and as a result, your Reality will implode and cease to exist, and in its wake, there will be several unstable Realities that will blossom, which will in turn poison all nearest Realities as well.”

A heavy pause hung in the air.

The tea suddenly didn’t taste as fantastic when the information sunk in.

John’s mouth opened dubiously just above his teacup. Sherlock didn’t even blink, though he was far from rendered speechless.

“Alright, … And how much time does one have before such a disastrous turn of events?”

“Every moment you spend here is a moment closer to the point of no return, which is in twenty four hours since you step foot here; one rotation of the Earth. I would prefer if we didn’t have to let it reach there.”

“Right,” John put down his empty cup. “How can we, uh, help you? Send us back?”

Stephen rose from his seat, cloak moving around him in a way that sentient creatures do. “I have brought us here to the Library for help from the documentations of our ancestors, Something like this, or close to it, should have happened at some point when the Mystic Arts was more rampant in the world, and there should be records I can refer. I’ll get to work on digging up the required spells that can help pinpoint the correct coordinates of your home," and he looked at them solemnly in the eyes, "But first, I will need from you a strand of hair, each.”

Sherlock and John looked at each other. The next second Stephen was behind them, and a gasp left their chests.

“ _Ow!_ ” Sherlock yelped, as Stephen gingerly plucked one curling strand from Sherlock’s wealthy mop of swirling ebony locks.

Before he needed to attempt a similar manoeuvre on John, the shorter man reached behind his head and plucked one ash blond hair of his own, the strand not too short having grown out from his cropped haircut at the Service. John placed it gingerly on Stephen’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Stephen said warmly.

John looked up at the tall, handsome man and returned his smile with a sheepish, lopsided version of his own.

Sherlock mumbled into his tea something about ‘disregard for personal space’ and ‘being entitled'.

As Stephen walked away, John whispered at Sherlock, “Pot, Kettle.”

Walking around to Everett’s side again, Stephen poised himself, the strands safely sandwiched between his enclosed palms like he'd just caught a fly. “Well, while I pore though a few tomes, you are free to make yourself comfortable in your hopefully short visit. You are also free to look around the Library, though I should warn you that very few books are in English. Please refrain from wandering outside of the Library; the Sanctum has centuries worth of protective spells meant to send unassuming visitors or thieves wandering lost among its corridors; isn’t that right, Agent Ross?”

Everett looked sourly at a smirking Stephen.

“I keep telling you, give me a map!”

“And where’d be the fun in that?” Stephen quipped pleasantly.

Sherlock looked between Stephen and Everett, his eyes catching the slightest fluctuations of expressions on their faces.

Stephen walked away to an aisle of shelves, his cloak cheerfully moving again, and he began going through a few spines.

_The cloak,_ Sherlock’s eyes followed. Stephen’s cloak had captured Sherlock’s attention from the first time he laid eyes on it; the deep embroidered fabric of it, so softly textured that he could almost feel it at his fingertips from all the way over at the table and the mesmerising way it was oh so 'alive', which was impossible, but the theatrics were brilliantly realistic.

_There had to be some explanation for it, 'sorcery' be damned._

Sherlock’s mind supplied some possible assumption, while he carefully gazed across his surroundings, drinking in the details as he usually did.

Meanwhile, as opposed to Sherlock, John observed the man wearing the said 'mesmerising' cloak.

John remained transfixed, watching as Stephen thumbed through a few chosen tomes with one hand, and swept the other hand in one fluid motion, as if elegantly conducting some half-thought, and the cloak magically unbuckled itself off his chest and swam across the room and away amidst the shelves, Sherlock’s head turning in alarm as he watched the cloak leave.

John looked back at Stephen engrossed in reading and flipping through pages in quick succession. John mentally conducted what he calls a ‘poetic deduction'; something he’d derived off Sherlock’s cold, factual, analytic method.

With these two men, it was all about the different in elegance.

To john, Sherlock had always been the epitome of 'chaotic' elegance; he was all long, gangly limbs and knobbly joints, but he carried himself with ever so much surety, be it walking, running, falling or gesticulating facts that went over everyone's heads, and he was well aware of his physical merits, which he used to his advantage more number of times than John could count. There was an inherently wild and uncaged etiquette to his jigsaw movements that was a part of his personality; so melded it was into his body language that it was involuntary and effortless, and John couldn’t imagine him any other way.

Until he sees the way Sherlock’s likeness carries himself.

Stephen had a quiet, reserved aura in the way he moved. He was controlled and precise; the delicate but rigid economy of his body language John knew came from practice as a doctor. And the ramrod straight posture combined with the arch of his sculpted eyebrows showed that once upon a time he was very good at his work and had been very well aware of his mastery that he took a lot of pride in; a little too much, infact, and maybe he once suffered the brunt of it, which would explain the humility softening his otherwise piercing eyes.

Stephen also seemed to aware that he had an odd and unconventional handsomeness, much like Sherlock, and the trembling in Stephen's fingers did nothing to mar any confidence. Even though it was obvious that he could no longer practice his craft of saving lives with the physical dexterity of his hands, he seemed to have found a more solid resolve in saving lives with his whole being.

_Spirit, he had said, hadn’t he?_

John suddenly realized he was staring, so he quickly terminated his deduction, ducking his head and looking into his empty teacup while clearing his throat.

Next to John, Sherlock and Everett were engaged in telepathic war through their eyes, much like the ones a certain pair of Holmes brothers used to be engaged in hours on end.

Thank God for Mrs Hudson and her Sudoku at times like those.

Here, he wasn’t so lucky.

Sherlock had been vocally deducing the hell out of Agent Everett Ross, and in return the man gave him his most cool, steely gaze. It was odd to John, looking at something like a reflection, dressed and groomed differently, with an unfamiliar body language, wearing that expression of smug confidence, he didn't usually muster unless on rare occasions.

Sherlock steepled his fingers under his chin and went on in a conversation John had missed the middle of.

“- and I presume your breakfast was going for waste anyway.”

Everett sipped at his beer casually, with the air of a man who’d had all the world at his hands, “Absolutely sucked ass.”

Sherlock frowned in distaste, wrinkling his nose at the racy choice of words, and Everett was staring at the scrunch just above Sherlock's nose, the one John called the _Wrinkle of Judgement_.

Everett blinked at him and looked away. He picked up his phone absentmindedly, thumbing through the screen a little too fast for comfort.

“Agent Ross?”

“Yes, Doctor Watson?” the man answered offhandedly, deep blue eyes still trained on his smartphone.

“This book, that you know us from; who wrote it?”

Everett looked up to see an utmost earnest expression across John’s face and it disarmed him a little; John had that effect on people sometimes.

Everett set his phone to screen lock and placed it aside, clasping his hands at the tabletop to give John his full attention, the friendly yet sharp features of his face highlighted in a pleasantly attractive fashion.

It was John's turn to look a little taken aback; he'd never associated so many flattering words with his own face before.

“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; an anthology written by a prolific writer named Arthur Conan Doyle who was well renowned for his crime stories. He wrote as you, Doctor Watson.”

“ _As_ me? I don’t understand.”

“He wrote as Doctor Watson narrating the many adventures he'd had while helping solve cases with his narcissistic, narcotic, eccentric, hyper intelligent detective comrade.”

Everett threw Sherlock a telling glance when the curly haired man looked way too pleased with himself at the description.

“Oh,” John smiled, "My blog!"

“Your what?!”

“My blog; you’re talking about my blog. I document a lot of our interesting cases as entries in my blog. A host of our clients come to us through it.”

“Oh, please, John, as much as we do get a few sterling cases from the litany of otherwise desperate internet addicts, your blog isn’t that famous,” Sherlock groaned.

“Oh, come off it, Sherlock, everyone reads my blog and you’re just jealous not even quarter as many people pore through your website, with your tiresome recounting of the two thousand types of mold!”

“ _Nonsense!_ First of all, that’s not even an accurate -”

Everett barked a sudden laugh, making both Sherlock and John turn to look at him mid jest, before the back and forth could go out of hand.

“A _blog!_ Obviously! It makes sense,” Everett shook his head, shoulders shaking as he chuckled.

“Why wouldn’t it?” John asked, “You just said the stories are written in my perspective, as cases. Why are you surprised?”

Sherlock’s eyebrows creased as something struck him.

“Unless, you weren’t expecting it to be blog entries in the first place, were you, Agent Ross?”

John looked befuddled.

“Then what else would it be?! Excerpts from my dear diary?!”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at John’s doppelganger as he observed solemnly, “You said _was_ ; the author _was_ Arthur Conan Doyle. That he _was_ famous for his crime stories. Is he dead?”

Everett's eyes shone with much excitement and mirth, a contagious emotion that Sherlock caught like the common cold. Everett leaned forward, a look of scandal on his face, lips stretched in an amused and almost cocky grin punching ridges of smile lines across his face.

Sherlock couldn’t help leaning in as well, as the man supplied, “Well, here’s the catch; Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the book in the 18th Century.”

A look of alarm passed across John’s face and a look of realization across Sherlock’s.

“The Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson we know are from the 18th century, way before the birth of the Internet. In that era, the alternative to Doctor John Watson’s blog was having the cases as articles that appeared in the Strand Magazine.”

“Which is why, when you first saw us, you thought we were dressing up in a modern equivalent costume,” Sherlock supplied in realization.

“Yeah; if anybody came up to me and told me they were actually Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, I’d expect the doctor to be in tweed, with a handlebar moustache and a bowling hat, and the detective to be smoking from a black pipe and wearing a silly hunting hat.”

“Oh, the silly hat’s a thing though,” John added with a grin, “The people love it.”

“Do shut up, John.”

Sherlock’s impression of sour milk made Everett smirk.

“Do we still live in Baker Street there? In the book?” John asked.

“Yeah,” Everett sat back in his chair, basking in the glow of bewilderment of his doppelganger, “You live at 221B Baker Street, tenants for Mrs Hudson, who we don’t really know much about, but I’m guessing she’s a bomb; takes a bit of tough skin to house danger magnets like you two.”

John’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, as a million questions bubbled in his brain, but none had purchase on his vocal cords.

Unlike Sherlock, who never had that issue.

“You seem to know a lot about us and the book?” Sherlock asked, sitting back in his plush chair as well, stifling a groan of pure comfort and the regrettable afterthought that if the Mystic Arts could lend him such soft upholstery at will, he definitely should invest in it.

Everett cleared his throat, as he answered, “Everybody knows a lot about you; the books are famous, very famous. Both of you are pop culture icons. Everybody’s read a Holmes volume at least once in their time. Its inescapable. People worship the stories as timeless literature at this point. They’ve even made plays, movies, comics, successful adaptations, though no recreation has beaten the original till date; people have tried and failed but continue to try even today in tribute to its genius.”

John felt the light of pride glow solemnly in his chest and he tried to hide a smile but failed.

“And you?” Sherlock sent his odd, reptilian, knowing smile at Everett, long fingers tapping a cheerful Morse Code on the arm of the chair.

Everett studied the tapping, his trained eyes narrowing as he decoded it as ‘ _fanboy_.’

There was an odd pause in the air.

“I own a book, or two,” Everett spat icily.

“I see we have an admirer, John,” Sherlock twitched an eyebrow, an all too cocky smile splashed across his sculpted, angular face.

Stephen’s voice floated to them, “To be specific, the books were written from the Victorian to the Edwardian era, specifically 1837 to 1901, in the perspective of Doctor Watson, but like Agent Ross put it, the appeal of it stands the test of time.”

The Sorceror Supreme dove into the conversation to save Everett of his embarrassment; the shorter man’s ears had gone a warm shade of red and John sympathized with that feeling all too well; Sherlock loved doing that to people.

Stephen walked to the table, a short line of books floated behind his back like ducklings diligently following their mother, a few still tumbling from the shelves to join in on the conga line. Stephen paused at the table beside his empty chair, and the books, without a squeak, piled themselves up neatly in some assumed order upon the tabletop.

Stephen picked up the topmost book and combed through it as he spoke.

“Arthur Conan Doyle was a revolutionary writer; his writing of Holmes through Doctor Watson’s eyes changed the face of crime fiction. In an era where all writers of crime novels were focusing on stories from the upper classes of clergy born in pristine conditions of luxury with cases that ran the span of thick books, Doyle’s crisp rendition stood out for its brevity, authenticity, smartness and ingenuity; a sort of writing made the reader know Holmes while not knowing him enough at all.”

Stephen glanced at Sherlock thoughtfully, and he looked back at him with a blank expression masking whatever emotion he felt hearing that.

“Doyle’s Holmes remains an enigmatic and eccentric pop culture icon, even today, for his skills of deduction and observation; infact, his method of using the finer details was applied to aid real time investigations.”

Sherlock looked smug but petulant as he mumbled, “And yet, the Scotland Yard still remains beyond their depth.”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John sighed in exasperation.

Stephen raised a judgmental eyebrow at the detective, before turning to John.

“And meanwhile, Doctor Watson is a household name as the most persistent and loyal friend; an archetypal gentleman exercising immense patience with which he has to put up with and enable the brilliance of the eccentric detective, right from his intelligence to his substance abuse.”

At this, John threw Sherlock a dirty look.

Sherlock’s mouth was a thin line of defiance.

Stephen smiled as he put the book he’d been scanning aside and went through the next one. “It is your voice of narration, Doctor Watson, that the readers within the stories adore, and its Doyle's retelling in your voice that everyone loves in our Reality. The detective and his companion themselves have inspired several generations to partake in contributing and being an integral part of crime investigation.”

Stephen glanced with a knowing smile at Everett who, for the need of a distraction, frowned at an artefact displayed aesthetically in the aisles of the library.

John smiled to himself; Everett started to make a lot more sense now.

“So, Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson,” Stephen smiled in good nature, like a polite professor who wasn’t beyond a little mirth, “How are we taking the sizeable info dump?”

John let out an overwhelmed exhale.

“This is all, well, it’s all a bit unbelievable, this is outright _insane_ ; that we’d be written about, and discussed, and 'adapted'. It’s hard to digest, to say the least.”

“Pity the author is dead; I’d like to have heard a word or two from him,” Sherlock interjected flatly.

“Doyle? Meet you guys?” Everett chuckled, “That’d be hilarious.”

“What do you mean?” John asked.

“Ironically, Doyle’s infamous creation got out of hand in terms of fame, and he really hated that it kinda overwhelmed all his other literary works, he even tried to k-”

“ _Agent Ross_ ,” Stephen smiled in warning, throwing him a sidelong glance in the midst of reading a book.

“Right, uh.”

John frowned, and before he could ask what Doyle did, a distracted Sherlock voiced himself.

“Would you happen to have one of them? Here? The books?” Sherlock asked carefully, his posture relaxed and unbothered, but his bright, blue eyes betrayed the excitement behind them.

Everett and Stephen shared a contemplative look.

Making up his mind, Stephen Strange reached out his hand into air just above the table and a blink later there was a book in his hand as if he’d grabbed it from an invisible shelf in front of him.

John blinked. _This still must be some kind of very elaborate dream, men conjuring books from thin air, authors writing about us in an alternate life, tea that tastes better than at Baker Street-_

Stephen held the book for a moment as if in thought, and smoothly handed it to Doctor Watson, bringing him out of his reverie.

Sherlock leaned to peer over John's shoulder at the book in John’s calloused hands.

The simple, matte black cover was adorned with the silhouette of a man in the deer stalker, a smoking pipe at his lips, with a shorter man in a bowling hat and a large moustache.

“Look what’s on your face,” Sherlock smirked.

“Look what’s on your head,” John retorted with a smile.

John could feel Sherlock’s pinched expression of indignance without having to glance at it.

“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle,” John read the cover out loud, punctuating himself with a helpless chuckle of disbelief.

John opened the book and he could tell it was an old copy; the pages were soft and yellowed, and smelt of the lovely nostalgic scent of used books that were lovingly read and cherished. The warmth spreading across his chest nearly melted him.

John thumbed to the index page and laughed, “The titles; they’re quite like my blog titles. A Study in Scarlet is probably about the lady in pink? A Scandal in Bohemia, ah, that minx Irene Adler,” he stole a sympathetic glance at Sherlock, who thankfully missed it.

“The most celebrated and recognised story remains The Hound of Baskervilles,” Stephen supplied.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. _I knew this whole hallucination business was familiar._

“Wait a minute -” John peered at the index page of cases, “The stories after the seventh one are without title. The number is present, but the title is blank!”

“Give me that!” hissed Sherlock, grabbing the book from John’s hands, and flipping the pages rapidly to the end.

The pages in the first half of the book had stories, and the remaining half was blank; the case titles had disappeared from the index and the case stories themselves wiped out from the pages of the book. All that remained there was the cursive of the page numbers and the untouched blank in the yellowing pages. The last case that was readable was infact, ‘The Hound of Baskervilles'.

“What is this?! Have you just handed us a book with defective printing?! Half the stories are missing! Where are the remaining cases?” Sherlock demanded of Stephen.

Stephen gave him a sublime smile.

“You forget that we know who you are, Mr Holmes. The moment you asked for the book, I knew you’d want to read the cases that have not crossed your present timeline yet. Doyle has laid down your life story in these books. You'd be basically reading your own future, through a Victorian eye. And I can’t allow that I’m afraid, so I planted a spell on it that forbids you to read the cases you have not yet handled within the timeline of your Reality. The cases are all there in print, but the two of you cant see them”

Sherlock looked beside himself with annoyance and scepticism.

John gawped. He blinked at the empty pages; they looked so _normal_. To think they had words that were specifically invisible to them was phenomenally astounding.

Sherlock voiced his disapproval readily. “That’s absurd! You’d be keeping from us essential details we can use to solve the future cases. It would save all of us a lot of trouble!”

“Yes, and fracture your stream of Reality from the inside, once you are returned. I’m sorry, Mr Holmes but you just cannot view them. I can’t allow you to,” Stephen looked almost sympathetic.

“Besides,” Everett added, “What’s the fun in knowing how to solve the case instead of using your own wits to deduce them? You’re way too proud to cheat your way through a good game of cases, aren’t you,” his deep blue eyes flashed at Sherlock, “You enjoy the chase as much as the result, maybe even more.”

“Takes one to know one, Agent Ross,” Sherlock's lips twitched, as he sat back in his chair.

There as a suddenly silence as Everett and Sherlock glared, for the lack of a more appropriate term.

John took this lapse in conversation to gingerly pluck the volume out of Sherlock’s long fingers and swept through the book, reading a page to establish the relativity between the 18th Century Watson and himself.

It was disassociating if anything; much like reading his own prose he’d jotted at some point of mid sleep without remembering writing them. It was distinctly his own voice, as clear as day, just with a far more eloquent use of the English garb where Holmes seemed more of a gentleman and quite polite to the people.

The way he wrote of Holmes was admirably reverent yet anxiously exasperated.

It was him, definitely.

John looked up at the Sorceror, “So if this is the original version, this old Victorian one, then _our_ Reality is an adaptation of this fictional story in _your_ Reality?”

“Exactly, Doctor Watson. Somewhere in another dimension, there exists an adaptation of the 18th century story; a modern-day retelling of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, and that adaptation has a Reality, which is yours.”

“And vice versa, something fictional in our Reality would be a reality elsewhere as well, then?” Sherlock asked, steepled fingers back under his chin in contemplation.

“Precisely. It’s also worth noting that nothing is fictional. Every possible stream of consciousness is real, and what one calls 'fiction' is merely your consciousness tapping into the proclivities of an alternate Reality, something that writers, artists and similar creators are gifted in tapping into. Everything you have imagined is real. Imagination isn’t fabricated; it is merely channelled from an alternate Reality.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” John pursed his lips, his mind reeling in the immense weight of the information he was receiving.

Sherlock quickly threw in, “You say that us knowing about the future would alter our Reality. But it’s already inevitable since we will be returning to our Reality with all this information you’re sharing. You're basically telling us everything.”

"If I didnt share this with you, I will not receive your cooperation in returning you," Stephen nodded, “And to tackle the problem of the information affecting your Reality, I’m sending you with your memories of this encounter in our Reality replaced.”

“ _Replaced_?” John gaped.

Everett frowned, “Strange, why don’t you just send them back to the moment they found the paper, and you know, _not_ let it happen? Prevent this whole thing from happening in the first place?”

“Time Travel doesn’t work that way. Preventing a thing from happening in the past does not undo its future; it only creates two or more separate futures instead. Sending them back in time to the morning today will create an alternate timeline where they never found the paper, while also separately retaining their original timeline where they did find it.”

Everett nodded thoughtfully, while John squinted in an attempt to understand while visibly struggling.

Sherlock stared between Stephen and Everett with narrowed, scrutinizing eyes.

Stephen turned to Sherlock and John, “Time Travel is messy business and puts a lot at stake, so I'd rather not go and change anything. Instead, putting you back into your Reality at the exact same ‘timestamp’ as here would ensure a better chance for a continuous stream of Time, provided I cover up any memory of the subsequent few hours you spent here; you will continue on with your lives as usual. To do that, I will need from you a false memory that would not make you question anything once you wake up in your Reality.”

“Waste of effort, Doctor Strange, because I am _always_ questioning everything; it’s a given,” Sherlock added sourly.

John replied, “Well, we’ll have to work around that like we always do, don’t we?”

Sherlock smirked self righteously.

“Careful, John; you get to eat because I’m always questioning everything,”

“No, Sherlock; _we_ get to eat, because I make sure you are alive enough to reap the benefits of you ‘ _always questioning_ ’ everything.”

Sherlock pursed his lips tightly in a knot of hurt ego and a defeat he was unwilling to admit.

Stephen stared between them; face pulled to an expression attempting to be neutral.

“Gentlemen? The false memories?”

John huffed an exhale of effort, before he addressed Stephen. "What exactly do you mean by 'false memory'?"

"You know yourself best; make up a false scenario that you are likely to believe whole heartedly. Something you are sure you would have done if you hadn't ended up here."

“Okay, uh," John frowned in thought, "The hotel we stay at has an Entertainment Club, so its likely I would be playing Pool there after breakfast; I had wanted to, since we landed in the hotel, until someone decided we should chase an enchanted piece of paper instead,” John threw Sherlock a telling glance, before continuing, “And later, I would be back in my hotel room, and maybe manage to doze off in front of the telly?”

“That’s a good plan, Doctor Watson; quite elaborate yet brief, and should be enough,” smiled Stephen with an approving nod. He then turned to Sherlock, “And you, Mr Holmes?”

“I woke up, had breakfast with John, and then I stepped into my Mind Palace to play with my dog.”

There was a sudden pregnant pause in the air.

“Your _dog_?” asked John, surprised at the new kernel of personal information.

“Your _Mind Palace_?” asked Everett, equally flummoxed, glancing at Stephen who looked as neutral as he could muster.

“You don’t have a dog,” John stated with a raised eyebrow, “Or have I been blind the entire time?”

“You’re always blind, John, it’s a wonder how you get your blog done,” Sherlock waved him away like a housefly, “RedBeard was an old family dog, an Irish Setter.”

John stared at him, more surprised about the Mind Palace Dog with the pirate's name, than offended about the judgement on his poor sight.

Everett sat back in his chair, deciding not to ask anything.

Stephen looked between the two Englishmen with nothing short of amusement, before clearing his throat to speak. “Alright, now that you’ve formulated the memories, I will need you to remember them in detail while I perform the ritual later. So, do remember the smallest details, like clothing, environment, the food, etc. Keep them as clear and vivid as you can.”

“And you intend to do _what_ exactly? Magically plant them in our minds with a crystal ball and hemp?” Sherlock scoffed.

“A crystal ball is for gazing into the future, Mr Holmes, and is a debunked myth; Crystal Gazing, however, is quite an elaborate and difficult study in Foresight of the Inner Eye.”

Sherlock looked at the man with a stare of condescending disbelief.

“Then, will you be using voodoo and lobotomy, instead?” Sherlock quipped.

Stephen smiled, “I don’t resort to medical techniques for tasks requiring Mystic Arts, Mr Holmes.”

John was immensely impressed with Stephen; very few knew that handling Sherlock’s remarks required the rare patience exercised by kindergarten teachers and college professors, and Stephen seemed to be flawlessly harnessing both. Mycroft would get along with this man splendidly.

It was also as interesting as watch a tennis match. 

“I will be extracting your false memories when I ask you to visualise them for me later, and then using certain spells, imprint them onto you before you are sent home, in a way that they activate only once you’ve reached your Reality.”

“Sounds awfully convenient.”

“So is a kettle, but life would be a little inconvenient simply watching a pot of water boil, wouldn’t it?”

Another battle of silent stares waged quietly between the look-alikes, while Everett raised an eyebrow at John who looked back at him wearily.

Needing a better breather, John got up from his seat, back straight in attention, “Well, gentlemen, if you don’t mind, I’ll have a look around. And I'll leave you to your research, Doctor Strange.”

Stephen broke his stare and nodded at John, “Of course.”

Sherlock picked up the book, eyes set on the first the first page of the first case, A Study in Scarlet.

“Sherlock? What about you?”

“I need to read this, John. Rereading about past cases from the perspective of an 18th century mind is ingenious, I'm surprised I didn't think of it yet; if you can’t solve a case in your time, why not try solving it simulated from an older time? The challenge in the difference of perspective will lend so much more clarity.”

Everett gave Sherlock his most disdainful look, as if the detective had uttered atrociously ridiculous blabber.

John replied, “As if solving them in your own time wasn’t hard enough, you want to do it reimagining in an _entirely_ different timeline, alright, I see how perfectly 'clear and easy' that makes it.”

“Don’t you ponder too much, John, you’d double over,” came the distracted reply as Sherlock whizzed through the book.

Resisting the urge to say something unsavoury, John nodded at the other two men and walked to the bookshelves, hands stiff at his sides, eyes wandering everywhere, leaving the table of three silent in his wake.

\---


	3. Detective

Half an hour passed in silence during which Sherlock finished the few cases he was allowed to read, carefully noting the similar but different way it was written compared to John’s blog, which, as much as he ridiculed, he admittedly liked. The titles could have been better as usual, John really needed some help in that department, if only he’d listen to him.

He peered at the book.

_Attention to detail and adequate research, the work of a professional,_ he thought to himself.

Tossing the book lightly on table, he realised he was the only one there; Doctor Strange and his Flock of Floating Books had left the tableside and Everett was gone as well, save for his empty beer can and the jacket of his dark grey suit that was neatly draped onto his armchair.

Huffing, Sherlock Holmes got to his feet, readjusted his Belstaff and took off knowing exactly what he wanted to look at.

He maneuvered his way away from the library and through numerous shelves and podiums of artefacts that seemed to hum at him like silent, breathing machines; oddly alive and warm to the touch. He peered inquisitively at a large, intricately adorned metallic cauldron, a caged leatherback tome lined with matted fur and gold inlays, a silvery sword with etchings of demons, a majestic shield with curious claw marks of an animal that Sherlock assumed was from the feline family, a circular wall plate that was so polished he could see his own reflection in it but on closer inspection he noticed millions of minuscule engravings.

Sherlock walked around, hands clasped behind his back, sharp chin contemplatively buried in the coil of the blue scarf at his collar.

He found himself near a squarish opening in the floor with a staircase leading down it, overlooked by a giant, circular, rose window with a curiously clover-shaped design of grillwork. Almost the next moment, his eyes caught the sight of something; the weirdly sentient, red cloak enclosed in a tall, glass box with a handsome, golden plaque a fixed at its base that read the name:

_The Cloak of Levitation._

“Levitation,” Sherlock scoffed softly at the word.

Sherlock quickened his strides and stepped up to it, nearly pressed into the glass to observe it. The Cloak floated on thin air, no visible suspended hangers or coat stand, the only little movement it possessed was something akin to the subtle breathing pattern of a human standing still.

Sherlock’s eyes reflected in the glass; wide, awed and calculating. Being alone with no one to judge him, he let himself lose in his childlike fascination.

“What _are_ you,” he breathed softly.

The collar on the Cloak moved as if it had a head, the shoulders squaring and the bottom corner of its body of fabric moved as if it were a finger to point at the plaque, like it was showing a child something he’d missed.

Sherlock didn’t move a muscle but frowned as his eyes followed its movement and then looked back up at it, beyond fascinated.

“Yes, well,” Sherlock stuttered, “Besides being apparel, obviously.”

The Cloak’s shoulder seemed to shrug, and Sherlock almost imagined its eyes rolling, and the fact he was tricked to imagine it having eyes baffled him; this garment had more personality than half the people he’d met and that alone gave way to even more fascination.

He observed its cloth, the inner lining a checkerboard of dark and light shades of a muted, pastel red, its silken fabric clean and impeccable. The red outer fabric was velvet and matte, cut to an unsymmetrical trapezoidal shape. It had numerous tailored seams mimicking the rays of light around the sun running along the shoulders and upper arms where it would sit perfectly upon its wearer's build. Two, twin, wing-shaped, golden buckles sat at the base of the generously large collar.

Sherlock reached out and pressed both his palms to the glass, and the Cloak moved back from within its glass box as if he had stepped into its personal space.

His eyes zipped all over it greedily, looking for any betrayed signs of rigging, machinery, threads, optic fibre latticework, ducking a little to see if the angle of light would give any little detail away, while the Cloak look distressed and offended under the unbridled and almost perverted gaze from the detective.

“Leave him alone,” came Everett’s casual voice from behind Sherlock, “He’s not interested.”

Slow, unrushed footsteps sounded, as Everett came up to Sherlock and paused casually by his side.

Sherlock cast a sidelong glance at him; the short man extruded eased confidence with his hands in his trouser pockets and a lopsided smirk. Sherlock eyed the odd, sleek gun holster of brilliant black braced across his crisp, white dress shirt whose sleeves were delicately folded till his elbow. His blue tie sat atop it, a sleek silver tie pin securing it in place.

“Is this weird man bothering you, good sir?” Everett addressed the Cloak.

With the body language of a posh, offended aristocrat, the Cloak nodded dramatically.

“Not to worry, I’ll keep him at bay,” Everett smiled at the apparel who played along like a sport and pretended to be coy.

_Coy?_ Sherlock watched this exchange like a dim-witted caveman who was introduced to the marvel of the television.

“You're seriously underestimating a very smart and sassy relic, Mr Holmes,” Everett turned to Sherlock, flashing him a charming smile, as he adjusted his blue tie idly.

Sherlock blinked a few, and snatched his hands away from the glass box, stepping back when he realised he must have looked like a child fascinated by the sharks with his face pressed up against the glass at the zoo. He straightened his coat and clasped his hands behind himself in a posture of self importance and dignity.

“Well, it seems someone’s chummy with this piece of clothing.”

“ _Earned_ his confidence,” Everett corrected, “At first I couldn’t stop him from smacking me every time I touched anything ancient in this place. Then I started speaking to him more like he was a person than a piece of cloth, and _voila_ , instant buddies.”

The Cloak made a gesture of indecision.

“Okay, fine, not instant buddies, but we get along,” a grin spreading across Everett’s face as the Cloak threw what seemed to be the cloth equivalent of finger guns.

Sherlock eyed the gesture like an owl.

"Its like a... a pet?"

"Not a pet," Everett answered while the Cloak looked at Sherlock with utmost indignance.

“Isn't Doctor Strange the Cloak’s … master?”

“I was told _he_ chose Strange. Something to do with destiny or the fact he knew Strange was going to be the Sorceror Supreme.”

Sherlock pulled a face of distaste at the word 'destiny'.

A small bout of silence fell as both men observed the Cloak.

“So,” Everett spoke, “Finished the book?”

“Of course. Not a feat when half the book has been ‘erased’ from my eyesight,” Sherlock replied bitterly.

“Enjoyed it?”

“Moderately, but yes.”

Everett grinned to himself then, a secret little twitch of the corner of his lips.

“What?” Sherlock snapped.

“You like it.”

“I see that alongside the resemblance of the physical, you also share John’s quality for stating the obvious and reiterating for no reason.”

Everett didn’t look a shade offended for himself and John. In fact, he looked even more amused. There was a glint in his eye that Sherlock found interesting.

“I meant you like the way Doctor Watson writes you. You secretly just _really_ like how he describes you and your acumen. And I meant both the 18th century Watson in the book and your Watson in his blogs.”

Sherlock blinked at the words ‘your Watson' and then caught Everett’s knowing smirk.

“And how would _you_ know that?”

“It’s evident, all in your voice alone; you’re already unapologetic, but when it comes to what John’s writes, you try extra hard to sound bored and whiny, but you’re alert, opinionated, defensive. And that’s besides the fact you wanted to read the book despite knowing what happens. Did you seriously just read it to understand the perspective of an 18th Century man, or to check if Ol’ Watson still wrote about you the way he does now?”

Sherlock shot him his most indignant look, at which Everett continued to grin.

“Just admit you like how John writes and save yourself the embarrassment denying it. I'd get it; Id be real flattered if my closest friend wrote about me like that. Always wondered what Ol' Mr Holmes felt about the whole thing. Now I can rest in peace." Everett tossed a smile at Cloak.

“Well, I’ll have you know what I 'feel about the whole thing' is that John's writing is 'likeable' in a style that’s easy for the masses to assimilate. It’s an easy read, almost elementary.”

Everett had a peculiar look across his face at that. Sherlock couldn’t name it but there was definitely some kind of secret mirth dancing in the man's eyes.

Everett looked away and cleared his throat, “Yeah, I don’t buy that.”

“I wasn’t selling.”

Both men stared at each other, a reflective moment passed as each assessed the other with twin gazes of steel.

“I don’t know how he puts up with you.”

Sherlock studied the padding on the shoulders of the Cloak. “John is a simple man with a simple mind; his needs, wants and trusts are firmly in place. A man of such simplicity and economy is perfect company to ground the electricity of my much more superior mind.”

Everett huffed looking at the golden plaque. “Dick.” 

“ _Excuse_ me??"

“I said dick. You're a straight up _dick_ ,” Everett stated, eyes ridiculing as he turned to look at him, the knot of exasperation in his face was all too familiar, “The way Doctor Watson writes you like you’re some fucking mystical creature of infinite capabilities and how he cherishes your companionship, and here you are, talking about him like he’s your goddamn secretary,” Everett shook his head.

“John Watson is my friend and colleague!”

“Yeah, sure. If I had a friend like Doctor Watson, I’d be thanking him left and right every chance I get for his bravery having to deal with constant threat.”

“And what makes you think I don’t appreciate John?!”

“You _just_ – wow, seriously,” Everett rolled his eyes, one shoulder shrugging in defeat.

There was another extent of a silence. Both men observed the Cloak who was seeming to be shaking his head too.

"And you too,” Sherlock stated carefully, eyes on the Cloak but addressing Everett.

“And me too what?”

“You like it as well. John’s portrayal of me.” After a pause, Sherlock ever so carefully turned his head to observe Everett who was suddenly a little fidgety. “In fact, I think you like it a _lot_.”

There was shift in the air. Something electric, as Sherlock’s eyes zipped around the man’s face, trying to catch his eyes, reading off the nervousness emanating from him.

Everett refused to lock eyes with the taller and infinitely more annoying man.

“I like it a normal amount,” Everett flexed his arms defiantly, hands still deep in pockets.

“Forgive me if I don’t _buy_ that,” Sherlock answered, his voice dropped low to a soft rumble in the air.

There was a rustle as Sherlock walked away, hands clasped behind his back, leaving Everett staring at the Cloak, listening to his slow footsteps.

Everett tried to breathe noiselessly; it was a skill he had honed in the fieldwork of being a spy and subsequently being in places he shouldn’t be, but it was proving to fail him when he suddenly realised that Sherlock hadn’t left the room at all.

Going by the reflection on the glass, the detective was now standing right behind him, looking down at him while looming like a tall ghost with pale skin and dark curls.

Exercising his unique ability to cause discomfort to people till they all but spat out the truth, Sherlock breathed slow and soft, well aware that in the permeating silence between them Everett could hear and follow his breathing.

“What?” Everett hissed in demand, not moving a muscle.

Sherlock remained silent, before gently letting out a rhetorical, “Agent Ross?”

Everett remained silent.

“ _Agent Ross?_ ” Sherlock’s deep voice laced with his enunciated accent rolled his words through the air, quiet but thundering to the shorter man’s ears.

Sherlock waited patiently until Everett succumbed to the heaviness of Sherlock’s presence.

“ _Fine_ ,” the shorter man hissed in defeat, running a hand through his greyish hair in irritated embarrassment, keeping his eyes steady on the glass ahead of him, “I liked Doctor Watson’s portrayal of you. As a kid, I saw you as - well, he, he made you a hero.”

Sherlock towered above the agent's frame, looking down at his head of silvery hair, easily indulging in the scent of Everett’s elegant choice of aftershave and cologne.

“I’m no hero.” 

“But you were m -” Everett steeled himself from continuing, face frowning at the glass.

“Yes?” Sherlock’s egging voice was merely a whisper above Everett’s head.

Everett gulped audibly looking at the reflection of the man standing just behind him, his body heat seemed to be radiating right through his Belstaff and into his white dress shirt. In his own reflection, the tip of his ears had gone a fiery red.

“I was _what_ , Agent Ross?”

Everett stood his ground; deep, blue eyes now defiantly locked on Sherlock’s icy cyan reflection in the glass, fisted hands in his pockets ready to spring to his defence the moment he sensed danger, his chin tipped up, fearless, like John.

“You were my hero growing up. I looked up to the man Doctor Watson wrote about. I studied you, I looked at the world like you. I wanted to work with you, I wanted to _be_ you. And I was pretty damn good too, and the next thing I knew, I am working for the CIA where we’re all about collecting data, executing its analysis and running covert, exciting missions that would be worth writing about,” Everett's voice was a little gravelly, “The books left much of your personal life to imagination. So how was I to know the eccentric man I thought a hero would be a total douchebag in real life?” he ended with a scoff, despite being a little breathless, making his remark fall short.

Seldom taken to sudden impulses of the physical kind, Sherlock questioned himself as he couldn’t help his open hands rise and hover, undecided, near Everett’s upper arms.

Despite the concern, Sherlock justified his suddenly weak control over his impulses by blaming Everett’s perfectly tailored suit, flattering his trained body all too well and that oddly irresistible cologne that he’s been trying to ignore since they met; _Paco Rabanne 1 Million_ , with its notes of mint, white wood and blood orange.

_Very apt, and a fine choice; engagingly friendly yet covertly deadly._

Sherlock’s eyes shone like dots of neon blue in the glass as he whispered right next to Everett’s ear, “And yet, Agent Ross, your breathing is shallow and your pupils are so very dilated I can barely see the blues of your iris which are now reduced to quivering rings," he smirked softly, "Tell me, Agent Ross, does me being your childhood ‘hero’ while simultaneously looking identical to a certain Master of Mystic Arts have anything to do with that?”

Everett's breath hitched and he looked a shade red, young and fiery. His eyes were blazing a brilliant flare as he smirked unexpectedly, with a glint of the shameless. “Maybe,” he sounded utterly calm, “You’re a man of observation; didn’t you deduce that?”

A small, appreciative smile curled from the corner of Sherlock's lips as he studied the short man. Everett was unfazed and even mouthy in the face of threat, much like his John despite the glaring differences; Everett, with his swoop of silver hair whose one strand was falling over his eyebrow, and his curiously magnetic cologne.

“And you, Mr Holmes,” Everett muttered softly at the glass, breaking Sherlock's descriptive reverie.

“And me??...” Sherlock, still distracted, now studying the man’s thin mouth in the reflection when he licked his lips nervously, also like John.

“Your breathing; shallow, controlled, and your pupils are equally blown, while you maintain a bare minimum of my personal space. Say what you want, but maybe you have an eye for a man in a uniform, maybe even better if he was a doctor?"

Sherlock’s eyes shot up to catch Everett’s in the glass again and Everett looked back defiant and challenging him do his worst.

"Did you 'deduce' that?"

"Learnt from the best."

A beat of silence followed.

Unlike he'd ever experienced before, all the nerves in Sherlock’s body lit in a sort of unbridled excitement, the kind he sometimes felt when he had had too much sugar on an empty stomach. Or other white and powdery alternatives.

Sherlock pressed a step closer, the lapel of his coat hovering only a hairs breadth away from the back of Everett’s dress shirt, and the shorter man stopped breathing at the implications. Sherlock’s hands landed carefully on Everett’s biceps, the soft fabric rustling at the warm contact of his long fingers and palms. His fingers curled a little around the strength of former pilot’s muscles uncased in the sleeves.

Sherlock’s lips parted a little, his heated breath curling next to the shell of Everett’s ear.

And before another word could be uttered, a sudden swish of fabric swam right into their middle, slapping them apart.

Sherlock tasted cloth as the dark shape threw him backwards and he landed on the floor on his behind, thankfully without much force, skidding a little on the smooth wooden surface.

“Motherf-” Everett exclaimed brokenly, having just nearly stopped himself from toppling onto an artefact by holding onto the glass box of the Cloak. He found his footing and turned around in alarm, face tinted slightly red like his large ears, eyes wild, a few locks of hair dislodged from his perfect swoop.

Sherlock sat on the floor in a daze a few feet away, long legs sprawled, coat spilling around him like a dark pool, the pale skin of his high cheekbones flushed, greenish blue eyes blinking up at Everett in slight lack of coherence.

For a moment, it all read like a dramatic Victorian painting.

The perpetrator of interruption was the Cloak of Levitation itself, having protectively stationed itself between them by placing itself in front of Everett and looking down at Sherlock, the corners of its cloth twisted as if to mimic folded hands.

Despite the lack of a face, and thereby eyes, Sherlock felt a judgmental and protective glare directed specifically and purposefully at him.

_“_ Seriously?! _”_ Everett hissed from behind, looking over the shoulder of the tall Cloak.

Sherlock all but grinned at the interesting course of events. “Looks like the faithful Cloak had taken a liking to you for many thoughtful reasons, Agent Ross. You might want to ponder over them a bit.”

Everett stepped out from behind the Cloak, who turned around and looked at him as if betrayed and disappointed.

“I don’t get it, what’s _your_ problem?!” Everett hissed at it, and the Cloak smacked him across the shoulder at which he yelped,“ _Ow!_ ”

Sherlock made to get up, waving his hand dismissively whilst addressing the Cloak, “No, it was my fault, I pushed him to-”

The Cloak wanted none of that; it turned around to Sherlock and spread its fabric wide like an angry bird trying to intimidate him with its spreadeagled wings.

Sherlock sat back, hands up in surrender.

Everett chastised it, “Hey, cut that shit out, I know he’s an asshole, but c’mon, it wasn’t his fault and you’re not my guardian! And nobody told me about the 'no getting frisky' rule out here at the Sanctum!” he stepped around the magical apparel.

Reaching out a hand to help up the detective, Everett averted Sherlock’s eyes, "Here, get up."

Gladly taking his strong hand, Sherlock hoisted himself up.

Everett took a step or two back, coughed awkwardly, running his hand through his hair to put his own dishevelled locks in place.

Sherlock cleared his throat, dusted his coat and straightened his lapels. He shook his head full of curls, as if that would make them any less unruly.

“My apologies, it’s probably all the incense in the air; I’m not usually one for... intimacy.”

“Well, um, it was weird, and we are never mentioning that again. Thank God Strange is covering up your memory out when you’re going back.”

Sherlock shot him a challenging look as he adjusted his scarf, “Yes, well, he is altering mine, but it’s interesting to note that yours will remain quite intact.”

Everett pursed his lips at him. “So?”

Sherlock smirked.

Everett blinked, “Yeah, I can always ask him to do mine along with yours.”

“Of course,” Sherlock smiled slyly, “But the question remains; will you?”

Everett stared at him, mouth opening and closing in a rush of wanting to say a lot of things at once.

The Cloak moved around, miming in animated exasperation like a distressed teenager. Everett turned to it, and before Sherlock knew it, the short, handsome man was engaged in some kind of half-verbal half-gesticulated argument with the long, sentient, red cloth.

A small, knowing smile spread across Sherlock’s face as he watched them.

Suddenly, the Cloak froze mid argument. It seemed to look away into the distance in alarm, and then simply zoomed right out of the room mid Everett’s rant.

Both men watched dubiously as the fabric zipped away with purpose, leaving them in silence and awkwardness.

“Maybe he was tired of you,” Sherlock supplied.

“At least you’re calling him a 'he' now,” Everett shrugged.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Sherlock and Everett used Angst Flirting !  
> -It was very effective !


	4. Doctor

John dove deep into the labyrinth of bookshelves.

Surrounded by many books teeming with inaccessible knowledge was an exciting emotion he remembered feeling as a small child who had walked into a public library; he could read none of the books yet he could feel the amount of information and the power they held as he passed shelf after shelf, turning right and left.

He had a book in his hand already, one he could find that was in English, which spoke about the Spirit of the body and its correlation with the Mind.

It might as well have been a different language altogether; he couldn’t understand a word.

He suspected that his helpless naiveté with the book was probably been sending waves of distressed confusion through the library, because soon he saw Stephen coming around the corner and entering the aisle, two books in hand, three floating just behind.

The man smiled courteously at him.

John knew he shouldn’t get used to the kind smile for long but resistance be damned.

“Hello, Doctor Watson. Looking up about the Spirit, are we?” he eyed the book in John’s hand.

“Well, a measly attempt, more like,” John chuckled in embarrassment, putting the book back into its empty slot in the shelf.

Stephen came up to him, nodding, “I understand. We don't really bring in a lot of visitors but we should probably have a more friendlier collection of volumes for them, shouldn't we?”

"Probably be very appreciated," John nodded with a smile.

John watched as Stephen placed one of the floating books into a slot in the shelf and picked another tome, thumbing through it.

Without the cloak to hide Stephen’s form, John had a good look at his build that appeared much like Sherlock’s at close quarters; the same long, enviably proportioned limbs and a narrow waist, but he was visibly more built under the many layers of exotic robes he was tightly fit in. The muscles in his arms flexed slightly Stephen lifted a heavier tome absentmindedly.

John mentally sputtered, and tried to be as discreet as he could, pretending to pick a book himself. “How is the, uh, research for the, uh, magic, proceeding?” John asked, berating himself silently for the stammer he’d suddenly acquired out of nowhere. He cleared his throat nervously.

Stephen was smiling to himself, blue eyes whizzing across a page with curious diagrams of what looked like neurons, or tree roots, or both.

“Well, I’ve managed to figure out the spells to use, now I am almost at the 'where' part of the equation, Doctor Watson.”

“So, we’d be leaving soon then?”

“Yes.”

“I see. That’s, uh, yeah, that’s good, what with the fracturing of, the, Reality continuum, and the sort.”

John was trying; really, he was.

Stephen looked up from his book to land his gaze squarely on John.

“Not to worry, Doctor, this is just a minor anomaly, I apologise for it getting out of hand. You’d be back in your hotel in no time. If you ever feel anything weird meanwhile, please voice them. The closer we are to twenty four hours, the more changes start to appear.”

“Changes? What do you mean _, changes??_ ” John’s mouth fell open.

“No need to be alarmed,” Stephen added softly, seeing that John looked a bit shaken, “This Reality is foreign to you, so the more your body acclimatises to this Reality, the more it is going to, how should I put it, 'readjust' itself to fit in. That includes your thoughts and emotions as well. You may feel a little different; more jumpy, impulsive, reckless even. They're just changes in your mental makeup. Any physical discomforts like a headache or pounding in the ears can be voiced as well. Forgive me if I’m springing all of this in bursts; I haven’t handled such an anomaly before and I've only just come across these specifics.”

Nodding, John licked his lips thoughtfully.

“Its alright, you’re doing fine,” John smiled encouragingly, “Looks like a lot of work. Was there an academy for this or some kind of training from the previous Sorceror Supreme? It being such a huge responsibility and all that. Taking on the mantle as the protector of the people; that should warrant some kind of preparation?”

Stephen sighed in response.

“There's no academy as such but they do train young Sorcerors learning to hone the Mystic Arts. And the previous Sorceror Supreme did train me initially. But before she could bestow the full knowledge she had accumulated over the many years, she had to depart from life. It was inevitable.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Everyone has a time. She prolonged her life using some questionable means but I believe she did it because the next Sorceror Supreme hadn’t entered the fray yet,” Stephen looked a little embarrassed, “And once she decided it was me, and that I was ready to learn the rest on my own, she left like she knew she would.”

John smiled, “I’m sure she made the right choice with you.”

Stephen looked at him again, smiling brightly, “I’m honoured to hear that, Doctor.” He quickly ducked his head, rustling through the pages, his pale face a little warm.

John felt his neck tingle pleasantly.

_Jesus Christ, John Hamish Watson; are you flirting with a Sorceror?!_

Scrambling to do anything to dispel the unnamed awkwardness, he observed Stephen’s trembling hands. His curiosity about it bubbled so furiously at his throat that he all but croaked, “Your hands-”

“Yes?” Stephen looked up at him again, eyes searching for the rest of John’s broken statement.

“I’m sorry, I was just curious, is it alright if I asked -” there was a pause from his side and then he shook his head, “Actually, you don’t have to answer that, sorry, I’m being nosy-”

“Doctor Watson, it’s alright, really, you can ask me anything.”

John looked at Stephen who radiated an air of calmness and he didn’t look annoyed in the least. The deep colours of his navy-blue robes made the gold flecks in his eyes stand out, like gold flashes in a night sky.

_Really, John? You smitten bastard-_

Ignoring the warmth in his ears and neck, John cleared his throat.

“Okay, if you insist, I was curious about what exactly happened to your hands; the scars, they don’t look like normal lacerations.”

Stephen removed one hand from under the book and held it out to display casually. He flexed his fingers, the tremors slightly vibrating his hand.

John stared at the long fingers with bony knuckles, manicured nails, and painfully healed scar tissues traversing the length of his digits.

“An accident, you mentioned earlier?”

“Yes. The car accident was a result of my careless pride. Put me in my place, and out of practice, as your companion phrased it.”

“Sorry about him; he can be a little tactless.”

“He wasn’t wrong though,” Stephen brightened, “It was a life changing event which, as painful as it was, I don’t regret, because it led me to where I am now.”

“That’s an optimistic way of looking at it,” John supposed thoughtfully.

He looked down at Stephen’s hand again, overcoming a suddenly curious urge to run his fingers on the skin, to inspect the healing stitches and what looked like scars of metal pins.

“Were there casualties?”

Stephen shook his head.

“No, it was just me. I was on my way one rainy night, ironically, to an event celebrating my achievements. I was on a medical call while driving,” he paused, his jaw clenched as he remembered that day as clear as yesterday, “I wasn’t paying attention, and my speeding car hit another, then struck and ricocheted off a tree, spun off the road and down a cliff, into a water body, and in the impact, I crushed my hands and broke several bones in my body.”

The pallor that struck a gaping John’s face made Stephen smile.

“And Magic, I mean, Mystic Arts, saved you?”

“Not at all. In fact, I didn’t even know it existed at that time. I didn’t believe in anything beyond Science.”

“Then how did you survive?!”

“A stroke of the smallest luck kept me alive enough to be found and rescued. Nonetheless, it was pretty late that night, so it took them a while to find me, and by then the damage was done, and the golden hours of salvaging my nerves had passed. They could put me back together, but they couldn’t fix my hands; I had no motor function left in my fingers when I was off the table.”

Stephen flexed said fingers slowly. The memory of lying immobilised in the hospital bed came to him, and along with it the ugly feeling of being as good as a freshly sewn corpse. He remembered dear Christine at his bedside, comforting him with gentle words and he remembered him replying that -

“The only one who could have fixed you, was you, wasn't it?” it dawned on John.

“Yes.”

“You were that good?”

Stephen smiled, as he looked down at his book, “Well, if I may put aside some modesty and tap into the pride that did me in, then yeah, I was pretty good. I completed my MD and PHD at the same time.”

“Bloody hell.”

“It was, actually. Surgeries and all that. You’d know.”

John smiled at him with abandon, and before he could stop himself his smile split into a contagious grin that gave way into both doctors shaking with child-like snickering.

Once all the giggling subsided, John mused, “How did you end up getting back motor function if they were irreparably damaged?”

Stephen took a deep breath and released a sigh, “That’s quite a, well, it’s a long story.”

“I’ve got twenty hours or so to spare,” John beamed.

John looked so endearing that Stephen all but laughed, caving in.

“Alright, you have asked to be bored.”

“Nonsense! Unless I’m keeping you from researching?” John looked pointedly at the books floating behind Stephen.

“I have a spell going that’s not unlike an automated search to speed up the process. I can spare some few minutes retelling my glorious 'rise from the ashes’ tale,” Stephen raised a sharp eyebrow at his own euphemism.

John looked at him, his full attention directed at the tall Sorceror who was selecting a few books rather than reading them.

“Initially, my fingers and hands were immovable; steel pins were fixed to support my dented fingers. The sight was horrendous, so ironically macabre. I considered my hands my assets; precious tools of my craft and therein lay the problem. And I spared no expense in trying to retrieve their use. I sought the best therapists, the most celebrated doctors, had a few risky surgeries only to improve a disappointingly insignificant amount. It wasn’t enough, because I was impatient and greedy to hold a scalpel and practice surgeries myself, despite the fact I couldn’t even write my name on paper without it being illegible or in pathetic scrawls. It was depressing and humiliating in every way; my first humbling by Nature.”

A thoughtful glaze washed over his eyes. 

“And then, to silence my impatience, one of my physiotherapists told me about the curious case of a man who was severely paralysed from the neck down; he had suddenly stopped attending sessions and the next time he was seen, he'd been walking without external support. The need for that instant recovery brought me to him. It was almost mockery when I first met him; the man was playing basketball of all things, with his legs strong and healthy. I enquired and he told me about _Kamar Taj_ in Kathmandu, a secluded site for spiritual healing, where it turns out he had learnt the Mystic Arts to puppeteer his paralysed body that couldn’t be healed back to normalcy.”

John made a noise of wonderment, “Is that where you…?”

“Yes. _Kamar Taj_ is where I met the previous Sorceror Supreme, the Ancient One. And she dealt me my second humbling; she showed me the Mystic Arts that I rejected immediately on sight, not unlike your gifted companion, Mr Holmes. It was a cleansing experience; being reduced to a desperate beggar and then rising into an eager student. I focused on training my mind, healing my self, understanding my body. The tremors in my hands never stopped but there’s so much more I can do now. I was told I was born for Mystic Arts, and hence, it is now my purpose.”

John looked at him in awe of his tale for full ten seconds, before suddenly barking, “That’s brilliant!”

“Thank you, Doctor Watson,” Stephen replied, a little taken aback, a little bashful even.

“You were very good at Mystic Arts as a student as well, I'm guessing?”

“Very much so.”

“Can’t help it, can you, being so blasted good at everything?” John laughed.

Stephen joined him softly, “With a photographic memory and raging competitive genes, it’s a given. But then again, I was more eager to learn because the Mystic Arts came naturally to me and it was healing simply to practice it.”

“I’m sure your teacher would have been very proud.”

“She was, or so I understood,” Stephen smiled modestly, “Since her departure, I’ve managed protecting the Sanctums with my friend Wong, who is also my mentor and the Head Librarian at all the Sanctums.” He paused to look at John, “And that, is the story of my tremors.”

“Wasn’t as boring as you were speculating,” John raised an eyebrow in mirth.

Stephen shook his head in denial, placing a book away, plucking another.

Stephen introspected the conversation; speaking about his tremors and his journey would have been a usual mundane retelling that wouldn’t strike the right nerves he'd expect, not to mention the pity oozing from the commentary, or sympathetic looks subsequently thrown at his shuddering fingers.

But speaking about them to a doctor who has an identical tremor of his own was something of a freeing experience. John was neither patronising not overtly sympathetic; he was simply understanding. He was light with his observation, moderate with his suggestions and gentle with his humour around it.

And it didn’t help that the short, blond man was quite a charmer in his own way.

Stephen glanced sideways at John who was looking at a book, absentmindedly smiling to himself.

“And your tremor, Doctor,” Stephen added carefully, glancing at John’s left hand, “Intermittent?”

“Yes,” John mused, “Its, uh, it’s a psychological thing, so I’ve been told.” He looked down at his left hand, that shook slightly. He formed and released a fist in quick successions.

“PTSD from the Afghan war?”

John nodded, and after a thoughtful pause he asked, “Did Doyle write that? Actually, what did he write, about me? As in, about my medical history? Is it, well, has he ever mentioned it?”

“Ever mentioned?? Of course! Why wouldn’t he?”

John shrugged, “I supposed he wouldn’t have bothered; everything is usually always about Sherlock.”

“Well, you have underestimated yourself, literally; you’re the one narrating the entire story. We know quite a bit about Doctor John Hamish Watson who joined the British Forces in India with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers before moving on to the Sixty Sixth Regiment of Foot, fought in the Second Anglo Afghan War, was wounded by bullet in the Battle of Maiwand in 1880, suffered through Typhoid and returned to England following recovery.”

“Jesus! That’s a lot,” John sighed, looking down at his left hand, "That's quite the mouthful, too. You remembered all that?"

“Photographic memory," Stephen smiled, "And how much of that information relates to you?”

“For one, I served at the Royal Army Medical Corps in Afghanistan war. I was shot in the left shoulder,” he took a moment to glance at the scarred wound he knew sat hidden under the layers of his clothes, “And I developed the intermittent tremor in my left hand and a psychosomatic limp. Thankfully, the latter is taken care of.”

“No doubt thanks to your roommate and friend.”

“Yes, well, he has his ways of helping the people around him, and it’s in best interest though it doesn’t always come off that way. In my case, he made me run the course of London’s alleyways to rid me of the limp and prove a point.” John couldn’t help his exasperated chuckle.

“I wouldn’t put it past Mr Holmes to do something like that,” Stephen smiled.

A comfortable since fell over both men.

After a moment of careful contemplation, Stephen closed the book he was holding, put it away silently and turned his attention fully on the shorter man. John looked up from the hypnotising parametric design that he’d been staring at on the cover of a leather tome and felt a little scorched under the sudden and deliberate gaze of Stephen’s now cyan eyes.

“Doctor Watson, does the hand still bother you?”

“I, uh, well, when I’m all by myself with my thoughts, yes. But on a case, I suppose I’m far too distracted trying to keep myself and Sherlock alive, that I don’t notice. Sherlock gets a kick out of deducing my stress levels based on the tremor that gives it away.”

Stephen considered him carefully, face without judgement or pity, “If you say there are no tremors when you’re on a case, then, is it that you find comfort in the thrill of the chase and the excitement of any danger similar to the war?"

John’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, something he'd been doing a lot of that day. Blinking, and frozen, he stuttered, “I, uh, um, …. Yes.”

John didn’t even consider lying anymore; the man probably knew how to read minds.

Taking a deep breath, John anticipated a stream of the usual; a medley of consoling words that usually burnt the skin around his bullet wound, drilling the pity into him like laser beams.

“Doctor, if you don’t mind my breaching your personal space,” Stephen stepped forward, “May I, see you hand?”

John’s mouth formed a vague ‘O’ of confused surprise, supplemented with creased eyebrows making the tip of his nose look bigger.

“I’m sorry?”

“Doctor Watson, your hand,” Stephen spoke softly, his deep voice had dropped down to a rumble, rolling in the air in the short distance between them. John looked down to see that Stephen had extended his own trembling hand to him, “If you don’t mind.”

John looked back up at him, the storm of green and blue of the man's sincere eyes was a striking sight that rendered him speechless; Stephen was towering in John’s presence with calm precision and mysterious perfection, and John all but lost a bit of sense.

Nodding, John timidly put out his left hand, the slight tremor in it embarrassing him. He focused his gaze on his own calloused knuckles and short, trimmed nails.

Stephen smiled warmly, taking another carefully measured step, and the proximity was starting to feel charged to John, heightening his attention to small details like the subtle waft of incense blending with a woodsy cologne that made its way into his senses.

_This couldn’t get better, thanks._

He watched as Stephen reached out and without touching John’s hand, he gestured him to flip his palm upwards.

John obeyed; his calloused and trained palm faced up, a multitude of lines can now be seen creasing the fair skin, speaking a tale of heavy combat guns and sharp bloodied scalpels. The broad tips of his fingers trembled.

Stephen pulled out both his hands. He hovered his right hand, palm down, half a foot above John’s, and underneath he hovered his left, palm up.

John stood there, feeling the awkwardness of his being seeping through his neck, with his suspended hand bracketed in the air by those of this tall, handsome man like he was holding something precious.

Almost immediately, there was a bright, yellow, spark of light in front of him.

John’s mouth dropped open, _“Holy Mother of God-”_

A certain set of Stephen’s trembling fingers folded to form deliberate and odd gestures, like sign language. He then started to move his hands, clockwise, orbiting around John’s suspended left hand, maintaining the gap between, and the shorter man drew a sharp breath as large, glowing circles of barbed sparks start to form.

John couldn’t believe his eyes; the gold light and the slight crunches of the sparks were all too real to be an illusion. The circles were multiplying, with squares and lines breaking the pattern of concentric circles; beautiful, mesmerising, hypnotic Mandalas of gold turning in on themselves.

Stephen’s hand continued to move clockwise until his left and right hands had switched places from above and below John’s.

Beyond baffled and a little breathless from the excitement, John’s eyes zipped up to look at Stephen. The Sorceror was absorbed in full concentration, engrossed in whatever mysterious thing it was that he was doing, and John watched the gold light of the concentric circles dance in the electric blue of the man's irises and the hollows of his angular face.

John’s breath hitched as his brain strayed away; the man was way too close for him to be unbothered, and that bloody cologne was befuddling him, and he felt his nerves buzzing very oddly. Having been in the military, personal space and privacy were things of myth, and after returning to civilisation, this is probably the closest he’d been to a man who wasn’t either decked in a bloodied army uniform, or donning a long, blue Belstaff coat. And yet here he was, feeling flushed like a adolescent schoolboy having a moment in a library.

Before he could be distracted by a multitude of more confusing thoughts, there was a sudden distinct tingle that John felt right under the skin of his hand; something thankfully pleasant and curiously odd, much like a bearable tickle. He resisted the urge to twitch said hand, by curling the fingers of his right hand into a fist at his side instead.

After a moment, Stephen blinked and paused. The brilliantly gold Mandalas, like lines of liquid light, melted away into the air, Stephen’s fingers unfolded into a relaxed posture and he finally looked John in the eyes, a lock of dark hair falling over an eyebrow.

John didn’t move a muscle.

Stephen smiled.

“Doctor Watson, you returned to London, but your hand hadn’t left the war,” his own hands closed the distance and enveloped John’s left hand in a warm hold. His long fingers shook slightly, cocooning John’s.

John looked between the hands and Stephen’s face quick successions of confusion, his ears were burning, and he knew they were a brilliant red.

“I, uh, what -”

“I simply brought your hand back.”

John felt Stephen’s warm hands squeeze a little, just before he let go. John flexed the fingers of his hand, peering at it, mouth dry as if he hadn’t taken a breath in the last few minutes.

His hand wasn’t trembling anymore.

He waited a few moments, studying his hand, which in hindsight didn’t look any different. He turned it this way and that, and the reality of the lack of tremors in his fingers sunk in, shocking him, and his jaws hung in a funny gawp.

“They’re, the, uh,” he paused, “The intermittent tremors, they’re gone.”

“Tremors can’t be cured by medical methods per say, but, if you’d noticed, I had a few tricks up my sleeve,” Stephen supplied in good nature.

John gave him his most flabbergasted look.

“Oh my God, I, you didn’t have to- I’m, I, thank you-”

John looked up at him, eyes full of awe and gratitude. Stephen nodded, still encased in John’s personal space as John continued to study his hand as if he’d not seen it in a while.

“Wait a minute,” said John suddenly, “If you can cure my tremor, why haven’t you cured yours?”

A look of melancholic submission crossed Stephen’s face as he sighed softly, looking down at his own trembling hands, “Well, I could try, but the damage to my hands is far too complex to be cured, and at best I have the option to use Mystic Arts to will my fingers to normalcy, but that would require me surrendering my responsibilities here at the Sanctum which is something I’m not willing to gamble.”

“Oh,” John mused, “Well, I guess, that’s very selfless of you; to be choosing the higher cause.”

“I’m sure you’re not unfamiliar with that feeling, yourself, Doctor Watson.”

John smiled abashed, his ears tingling. “Well, every day we try our best to solve a crime, save a life, and with our life constantly on the line, choosing the higher cause is always a given,” he shrugged modestly, more embarrassed than required.

Stephen nodded.

“I’m sure, without a doubt, Doctor Watson, you’d take a bullet for the right cause as easily as you’d put a bullet in someone for the same. You’re a hero; you and Mr Holmes, both,” Stephen smiled widely, eyes sparkling in what looked like silent admiration.

John’s insides squirmed pleasantly under his gaze.

“You’re too kind, Doctor; we are not heroes, well, actually, perhaps Sherlock is, what with him and his quirks and his IQ, but at the end of it we are just two men doing our best to lend help to those who seek it, and now it’s our job much as it is our choice.”

John saw Stephen giving him a small knowing smile.

_Subject change, Watson, now!_

“And you?” John asked quickly, “This, all of this magic, it is your, uh, 'job', isn’t it? Protecting the Earth? Is it just you, as a Wizard, sorry, Sorceror?”

“It is not so much a job as it is a duty. As Masters of Mystic Arts, we are many, all stationed at the three Sanctums, we tackle issues that are of the Mystic kind. Regarding Earth's other issues, there’s an interesting little posse of gifted men and women, called the Avengers, who take care of certain things.”

“Avengers? Avengers, As in, they, _avenge_ , people?” John bit the inside of his cheeks to stop himself from landing a confused laugh.

“The Earth, in particular. From internal and external threats.”

“External?? Like Asteroids and meteors?”

“Particularly aliens and beings of immense power beyond the ordinary.”

John paused for a moment to collect himself.

“Aliens?”

“Yes.”

“ _Aliens?_ ”

“Quite. In my opinion, 'alien' is too hostile a term to denote them.The human race is so afraid of the unknown that anything else is always viewed as alien or absurd, or beyond normalcy. Normalcy and ordinariness are relative terms; to the beings in the Universe, we are but neighbours, more so, coexisting, living creatures.”

John stared at him in pure bafflement, blue eyes wide and uncomprehending, mouth a little agape again.

“I’m sorry that’s a lot to process at once,” Stephen laughed, “I end up going off on a tangent about these things. Agent Ross once walked out on me for my soliloquy about the Universe when he’d dropped by for a police report.”

Despite the shock regarding the extraterrestrial, John laughed too, when his mind happily supplied a mental image of the handsome and silvery version of himself walking away angrily as Stephen waxed poetic about the mysteries of the Unknown.

A curious look then passed over John’s face, which Stephen was sharp enough to catch.

“Yes, Doctor Watson, you have a question?”

“How did you and Agent Ross meet? Is the CIA secretly a coven of mystical Sorcerors too?”

Stephen laughed again.

“Agent Ross is closely acquainted with the Avengers and the King of Wakanda, a very developed city of unparalleled technological advancement. The King also happens to be an acquaintance of the Avengers. A while back, an attempt from the American government to work with the Avengers went sour; issues regarding property damage control and freedom of action. So, in the messy aftermath, the CIA has been tasked to keep a peaceful intelligence between the government and the several protectors of Earth. Hence, along with many officers dispatched to acquaint and patrol with certain Avengers, Agent Ross is running reports with the Sorcerors and Wakanda to keep everyone informed and prepared in the case of an internal or external threat.”

“That’s a lot of responsibilities,” John exhaled, eyes wide.

“Absolutely. He’s a good sport; it’s been a month, he’s seen enough of the Mystic Arts that I’m curious to know what kind of Sorceror he’d make.”

“A very angry one, that’s for sure,” John added with a whistle, “Him getting to throw light beams and levitate people sounds like a lovely situation I would _not_ want to be in.”

Stephen laughed again. “On the contrary, Agent Ross is a very composed man. It’s just that the burden of being aware of the Mystic Arts while also not practising it, has rendered him always wary and questioning of the slightest weirdness. He is still coming to terms that he cannot explain it logically or scientifically.”

“That’s something Sherlock does too; trying to explain the unexplainable.”

“Let me guess, Mr Holmes been trying to deduce my Cloak from the start, hasn’t he?”

“Absolutely. He might even be trying to right now, this very moment. Is it safe to have Sherlock wander around your library unsupervised? And I don’t speak from lack of trust, but from experience.”

Stephen nodded, gathering a book, “He won’t be unsupervised; Agent Ross will keep an eye on him. And if they are lost, at least they will be lost together, till I find them in a moment's notice.”

“You speak from experience too, don’t you?” John grinned.

“As little as I know about Agent Ross, I trust him to understand how people like Sherlock, and therefore himself, would treat the items in this Sanctum, and I know he will make sure Sherlock doesn’t just activate one of the Portal Doors and end up in Lithuania,” Stephen smiled widely, “Agent Ross once ended up in the Arctic Tundra when he wanted to leave the Sanctum on his own; I found him covered in snow like a Yeti, frowning like a thundercloud, I didn’t hear the end of it for a week.”

John barked a short laugh, Stephen joined in a composed chuckle.

A veritable pause extended between them.

“You sound like you’re fond of him; you are, aren’t you?” John asked. There were signs that he didn’t miss.

Stephen smiled warmly. “Agent Ross is a very charming man, again, not unlike yourself, Doctor Watson.”

“Oh, uh," John scratched the back of his neck in rising embarrassment, "I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” 

“Absolutely.”

“Right,” John smiled sheepishly, “I’m flattered; but 'charming' is the last thing anybody would use to describe me. I can almost see Sherlock roll his eyes from wherever he is; he'd probably opt for 'Economically Amicable'.”

John shook his head, his face a little pink, ears bright red against the soft yellow of his ash blond hair, a cowlick sticking up from the crown of his head. He looked down at his shoes for the lack of anything to root him.

Stephen observed John, fascinated and curious.

“Doctor Watson,” Stephen asked carefully, his body still and relaxed but his gaze like laser points on the shorter man, “May I request a second breach of personal space?”

John blinked oddly at him. “I, uh, sure, but what are you healing this time; my shoulder is fine though, really, and-”

Stephen leaned in, and spoke quietly, “Forgive my gossip-like intrusion, and this might seem very nosy, but I’m ridden with curiosity; are you and Mr Holmes something beyond just a pair of gentlemen solving cases and saving lives?”

John looked taken aback to hear the annoyingly familiar question from Stephen of all people, his eyes darting around Stephen’s face to understand if it was a joke or an insult, but he looked sincere enough for it be be neither. John cleared his throat and tried to play casual again.

“We, well, we-, we are good friends.”

“Do you look at _all_ your friends like that?”

John paused, dread in his stomach tying and untying into precarious knots.

“What do you, what - what are you implying, Doctor Strange?” John clenched his jaw in an attempt of retaining a semblance of calm despite his sudden, unexpected spurt of panic. John wondered why he was feeling a rising wave of paranoia, despite being usually calm and defensive when confronted by this brand of question aimed at his friendship with Sherlock.

Is this what Stephen had meant by a change in his mental makeup?

Stephen’s voice roused John from his self speculation. “I’m just implying that the way you look at Sherlock is reflective of the way you feel about him,” Stephen's eyes were soft and imploring yet a little guilty of prying as if he couldn't help himself.

“And that would be what exactly?” John was being rubbish at masking the dread.

Stephen leaned in further, watching as John’s face stilled like stone, his pupils blown.

“Remember when I told you that your mind and body are acclimatising to this new Reality? Well, it makes you very 'readable' to us Sorcerors.”

“Readable?”

“Yes, readable, and interestingly _magnetic_ ,” Stephen breathed.

“Magnetic? I- I dont understand-,”

Stephen’s cool blue eyes roamed across John’s face as if studying reverently a timeless artefact, “Because you are not from here, you are _different_ , and it affects not only you, but everyone around you as well, Doctor Watson, its your, energy, that draws people who can read it...” his every word paused and soft.

"Energy? You mean, Chi??"

"Something like that...," Stephen mumbled distractedly.

That odd tie in John's stomach had all of a sudden undone itself, melted away, and he was warm up to his neck, tingling, like he’d just downed a beer. He swallowed to ease the sudden hot lump in his throat.

They spent maybe half a minute simply staring at each other, which when John thought about much later made him want to laugh in bewilderment.

“Doctor Strange -,” John's voice came out a little scratchy.

“Please, you can call me Stephen,” the taller man’s voice heavy in the air.

John’s eyes whizzed between Stephen’s.

“Only if you call me John.”

There was a heavy pause leaden with charged anticipation.

“ _John_ ,” Stephen spoke, his accent lilting the name a little, but it sounded as gritty as when Sherlock would say it when he was being earnest and sincere, “There’s a myth among the people. About you and Mr Holmes.”

“A myth?” John asked softly, his voice too had become like a scandalous hush in the silent aisle of the library.

“Yes, a myth that, perhaps, the two of you have surpassed roommate acquaintanceship to something a little bit more, how do I put it, _private_?”

“Doctor Str – uh, Stephen, are you asking me if Sherlock and I are something of an item?!”

“It’s a speculation among the fans, very rampant, very dedicated. In a natural order of things, it’s a given; creative fans will see a dynamic among fictional characters that otherwise wouldn’t exist,” Stephen blinked, gazing at John, “But you read to me, in your acclimatising state, with a very confirming note about it.”

“W-what?”

Stephen looked indecisive on how to continue.

“Stephen?"

The hesitation in the otherwise confident Sorceror was driving John mad. At this point the intermittent tremor in his left hand should have set off but it was oddly calming to not have to experience it without being in danger.

“Actually, it’s nothing, John, you -”

“No,” John demanded almost impatiently, “Tell me, what are you reading?”

Stephen pursed his lips and after a breath he said, “Whatever it is that you are feeling about Mr Holmes, you are projecting it onto me and for obvious reason.”

John swallowed again, tongue darting out to lick his suddenly very dry lips.

_Jesus. Jesus Christ, what are you doing, John Watson? What ARE you doing?_

John felt his entire face flush warm. He could feel the tension and anticipation so heavy in the air it was almost suffocating him. This was both very embarrassing and slightly freeing.

John spoke as steadily as he could, “Forgive me for that; I didn’t mean to come off so, uh, strong. It’s just that Sherlock, well, he isn’t as conversational or as engaging with the more personal opinions, like you are,” John mumbled, his eyes studying the features of Stephen’s blue robe, “Sherlock doesn’t respond, to, uh, _advances_ , he doesn’t even understand them. Bloody never picks up on them, unless its a clue in a murder scene.”

"I understand." 

Heart hammering in his chest and desperately seeking a distraction, John’s healed hand came up and carefully touched the sleek metal of the intricately carved, eye-shaped medallion hanging from Stephen’s neck. There was something green encased in it; the metal casing was warm and, with a little pause, also vibrating ever so slightly.

With no objection from Stephen who had fallen silent, John cupped the metal casing his hand and brought it up a little to gaze at the intricate work on it. The metal looked strong and sturdy yet worn from centuries of use.

John looked up at him.

“The Eye of Agamotto,” Stephen all but whispered the answer to John’s unasked question; the proximity between them so small they might as well have been embracing. Stephen felt his neck tingle and his chest tighten as he gazed down at the short man.

“What does it do?” John asked.

“Alter Time,” was all Stephen could answer as his otherwise articulate brain drew a blank.

The corner of John’s mouth tugged into a small smile.

“Alter time... can it alter the time I tried to,… when I wanted to, but I didn’t-,” John steeled himself for a second or two, pausing for several moments, before some kind of hardy resolve shone in his eyes.

“Well, actually, _sod_ this.”

A tug on the Eye pulled Stephen onto him by the chain, his foot stepping forward to step between John’s shoes in an effort into retain balance, and his trembling hands flew up to catch John’s upper arms for more balance.

There was barely an inch between their faces now, noses almost touching, John giving permission to that curious woodsy incensed scent to invade all of his befuddled senses; John could count all of Stephen’s eyelashes, the precision with which he had shaved his facial hair, and the silken strands of silver hair bracketing the sides of his well groomed head.

The long fingers holding onto John’s elbow squeezed a little when the weight of their predicament sunk in.

The adrenaline was almost overwhelming John, making him part his lips a little and take in one breath the exhale Stephen let out in anticipation.

A sudden flash of red blocked his eyesight, with what felt like fabric covering his face.

Blinded immediately, all he heard was a muffled gasp as he felt Stephen’s large body collide with his. John’s reflexes supplied him with enough sense to hold onto the shelf with his left hand, and his right arm went around Stephen’s abdomen reflectively.

_“Good God wh-”_

Stephen was too heavy, John lost his balance, and with a second to spare, John went tumbling backwards on the floor in a thump, taking Stephen down with him, some dislodged books falling on them in the process.

John groaned.

It took him a second, but the red obstruction gave away to a flushed Stephen who looked down at him dazedly and mildly too shocked to function.

The red cloth, John noticed, was that of the mysterious Cloak; it had flown in from wherever it was, tossed them to the floor, and now buckled itself onto Stephen’s shoulders, the bottom corners of its body twitching angrily up, as Stephen raised himself up on his elbows and looked down at John, a few locks of his black hair falling over eyes.

“John, are you - _ow!_ _Watch it, watch IT!_ ”

John watched as the Sorceror was tugged back by the neck of the collar; the Cloak was quite literally hoisting up the whole man to his feet by his neck in a sharp tug, and there he stood, dazed and a little off kilter with all the sudden unexpected appearances.

“I’ve told you not to do that,” Stephen chided at the animated collar of the Cloak that was now calm around his shoulder, “I could easily break my neck, and I’ve broken enough bones as it is!” he quickly ran his fingers through his hair to put the dislodged locks in place.

The Cloak looked offended enough to be spitting retorts, had it a mouth to put to said use.

Looking down at the dumbfounded doctor sprawled on the floor, Stephen offered out a shaking hand, “Here, John.”

Taking his hand, John grunted himself upright and on his feet. He took a good look at the Sorceror, and their hands, and then stepped back, face heating up in absolute horror of what just transpired off of what he’d decided to do like a hormonal teenager.

“Oh my _God_ , I’m, I’m sorry about that, I didn’t, I got a little carried away I guess, I shouldn’t have done that, I’m not usually this impulsive, I- it was ridiculously uncalled for,” John stuttered sheepishly, and the Cloak seems to agree, its collar moved as if in a nod.

John gave it a long look.

“I see your Cloak has the same idea,” he laughed, trying to cheer away his immense embarrassment.

Stephen threw a chastising look at the Cloak draped on him. He then turned to John, brilliant icy blue eyes soft again, face a little red.

“No worries, John. It was possibly the acclimatising I told you about. And I apologise too; I pried in a matter not my own, and I let it all happen. I didn’t exactly stop you, did I?” he sent John a wry smile.

“No, you didn’t, actually,” John smiled back as he seemed to put two and two together, still red in the face but regaining some of his dignity back, “You didn't at all. And that quite says a lot.”

Stephen looked a little surprised, as he asked carefully, “It does?”

John gazed at him long and hard; the glimmer returned in his deep blue eyes.

“Of course,” John smirked, “Do _you_ look at all your friends like that? Or only those with gun wielding hands and a history of combat?”

Stephen paused, blinking, much like a deer caught in headlights.

“Well I-”

The Cloak was agitated again, the collars patting urgently and rapidly against Stephen’s cheeks.

“Can you stop!? What’s upsetting you?” Stephen demanded in a sharp whisper, looking over his shoulder. The Cloak tugged back and made him spin towards the other end of the aisle.

“I think he’s trying to tell you to get back to work,” John laughed a little sheepishly.

It was endearing to see the tall, dignified man engage in what looks like a discreet wrestle with the red, sentient apparel, much like a child being pulled away against his will.

Stephen threw John an apologetic look, and John sympathised.

“It’s alright, I’m sorry for taking your time, I’ll, uh," he gestured with a thumb, "I'll be off to the table from earlier. I can wait there, maybe read the book, if you some more of that tea lying around?”

The Cloak stopped trying to wrangle Stephen.

The Sorceror nodded, restored to his natural authoritative pose, “Of course, the pot is always full, you can help yourself as much as you need.”

Shrugging awkwardly in farewell, John nodded, spun on his heels, and quickly scuffled out of the aisle, the silhouette of the Sorceror in his peripheral vision when he turned a corner.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why isn't there enough of this pairing anywhere (sobs)  
> Also two updates today because it's almost New year's !


	5. System

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Years everyone!  
> Heres to a bedazzling 2020 <3

The walk back to the reading table was mentally hectic for John Watson, riddled with a potent mix of crippling embarrassment and swelling panic; the embarrassment from coming onto a Sorceror, and panic because the man in question was a _Sorceror_ , and said Sorceror just cured his incurable intermittent tremor with Magic.

_Mystics Arts,_ he corrected himself.

John took deep breaths when he felt his sanity unravel a little around the edges, sheer habit making him flex his left hand.

John was a simple but capable man; he could handle a lot. He could handle the war and death. He could handle sewing up a man’s abdomen after shoving back in his spilt guts while bombs explode around him like fireworks, deafening his ears and shaking the ground, caking everything in debris and mud. He could handle a high functioning sociopath with gifted foresight and near unbelievable skill for deduction coupled with a complete disregard for human nature and personal safety. He could also handle a manic, murderous psychopath with a vibrant kink for causing catastrophic trouble egged on by a continuous boredom with the world not being as hyper-intelligent as he was.

But could he handle the simple fact a very handsome magical man just cured his otherwise incurable tremor with sparkly, gold Mandalas made of liquid light, while he and said man shared a heated moment together?

That remained to be answered.

John lost his way twice, but thankfully, he reached the end of an aisle which opened into the Reading Corner. He made it to the large, handsome table laden with tea and, this time, biscuits and assorted snacks. Sherlock and Everett occupied their respective seats opposite each other, bickering over the biscuits.

Everett’s eyes caught the sight of John and he sat back in his seat, an odd knowing glint in his eyes as he greeted him. “Hey there, Doc. Found anything to read?”

John tried to remain nonchalant despite the torrent of confused panic threatening him. He sighed as he sat on the armchair next to Sherlock who was munching on a light blue macaroon.

The doctor looked at the agent warily. “Well, I must have missed all my Sanskrit and Mystic Arts classes, because I can’t read for shit.”

Everett nodded solemnly, plucking a Turkish Delight from a collection of sweets, “Been there.”

John studied Everett who carefully downed the sweet, making sure he didn’t land any powdered sugar on his expensive trousers. His jacket was draped across his chair, and his dress shirt flattered his upper body in ways he didn’t realise it could. The sleek black gun holster simply added to his Bond like air. The sight of the well groomed doppelganger was, no matter how much John convinced himself otherwise, very unsettling and absurd and still very dreamlike.

If anything, it merely supplied to his stressful musings of the bizarre occurrences.

John carefully reached for the sweets.

_This better not be some kind of drug induced hallucination like at Dewers Hollow, good God, that is some ridiculously lovely chocolate._

He looked down at the piece he had taken a bite off.

_I AM drugged, aren’t I?_

John chanced a glance at Sherlock, who was finished with his macaroon. He seemed very much at ease and not in the least his inquisitive self, which in itself spelt impending doom. His hands were veritably too relaxed in a lock at his knees as he stared off into the distance ahead of him.

Everett had pulled out his phone and seemed to be typing out either a long text or a short email.

John took the chance and leaned to Sherlock’s side.

“Sherlock?” he whispered, finishing off the chocolate.

“Yes, John,” came the offhanded reply, as he continued to stare off into nowhere, gears visibly turning behind his glassy blue eyes.

“Had a look around?”

“Yes.”

“And did you, find anything of… value?”

“Define value, John.”

John pursed his lips, observing the way Sherlock hadn’t moved a muscle. He almost envied the way Sherlock could hold a conversation with him while thinking and calculating something probably entirely different.

“I meant to say, did you see anything, 'magical'?”

“Yes.”

“Which would be?”

“The Cloak of Levitation. _Magically_ deceiving technology, that. Undetectable and discreet.”

John let out a sigh of defeat as Sherlock fell into silence again. “Sherlock, you’re…” he trailed.

The detective didn’t say a word to enquire further.

“You’re very unsettlingly calm, when an hour ago you were squirming all over the place and challenging the Sorceror Supreme about Parallel Realities; it’s a little daunting. Are you alright?”

A frown furrowed at the bridge of Sherlock’s long nose.

“Of course, I’m alright, why wouldn’t I be alright?” his head swivelled to John and his small slit-like eyes narrowed on blond man, “I should be the one asking; are _you_ alright? You look a little red in the face. Have you been exerting yourself?”

Sherlock stared at him in that manner that made John feel like his brain was being scanned for his hidden agendas. John felt his ears burn a little.

Panicking internally, he shrugged, “Oh nothing, just, overwhelmed with all the magic and voodoo and science fiction and the like,” and in an uncharacteristic attempt to dismiss Sherlock's suspicion, John waved his hand a little too eagerly, almost knocking down a pitcher of sparkling cider which he was sure wasn’t there a moment ago.

Sherlock observed this weird display and shot him a judgmental glance.

Seeing no end to his embarrassment, John was thankful that Everett had missed his little debacle since he had moved to the other end of the room to attend a call.

John turned to bestow Everett a nervous glance and promptly proceeded to get distracted instead; Everett stood at the far end of the room, one hand on his hip, his posture accentuating his frame. His silvery watch caught the light of a nearby floating candle as he moved in animated conversation. The sleeves carefully folded till his elbows revealed tanned forearms with slight, pale scars across the skin, speaking volumes about his experience.

John blinked at his likeness; trust himself to be momentarily taken aback by how attractive he could look with the right kind of clothing.

_This has been a ridiculous day so far_.

John turned back to Sherlock only to see the man himself observing Everett as well. There was a twitch in Sherlock’s expression as if he hadn’t meant to be caught looking.

The detective turned his eyes and blinked at John in a robotic way that terrifies most people who were not John.

“You should wear suits more often.”

“What?!”

“Don’t get me wrong, John; as much as your ‘plaid shirt and woollen jumper’ aesthetic lends a very calming and homely demeanour to the more terrorised or traumatized clientele, a suit or two would make the whole ordeal look more, _dignified_ , if I should say so myself.”

John gaped.

The doctor took a moment to close his eyes and gather all the patience that was slowly seeping out of his pores. He then bestowed his most exasperated stare at the detective, “Are we seriously critiquing my choice of _fashion_ when we are literally in the middle of a science fiction drama??”

“Of course, _we_ are not, John; I am.”

“ _Sherlock_.”

Sherlock let out a petulant groan, head falling on the backrest of the armchair in a soft thump, his curls bouncing around his temples. His lips pursed as he frowned at the intricate carvings on the high ceiling.

“Why drama?”

“What?”

“You said ‘science fiction drama'. I understand the science and the fiction, but where’s the 'drama'?”

John gaped at him silently again.

“Drama involves heightened emotions and feelings. Did you experience either, John?”

“Uh, n-no-” John huffed.

“Hmm, wrong term, then. Use you words correctly, John; for a man writing a blog for an eager audience, you’re slipping.”

John very nearly succumbed to the urge to empty the pitcher of sparkling cider onto Sherlock’s head.

A moment of silence extended between them.

“You spoke to him, didn’t you?”

“Who?” John snapped, rubbing at his temple after regretfully dumping his cider idea.

“Doctor Strange,” Sherlock mumbled slowly, feeling the words in his mouth, before turning his head to look at John, expression unreadable as always, but voice laced in a sour tint of irritation.

“Yes,” John swallowed carefully, trying to not recall the events of a many minutes ago, “I did.”

“And?”

John didn’t need to look up at Sherlock to know his bright cyan eyes were scanning him again, waiting for an answer.

Letting out a sigh, John turned away and sank back into his chair, eyes studying the metal intricacies of the tray of biscuits.

“He told me we will be sent home soon. He’s got the necessary spells sorted out,” John ignored Sherlock’s scoff as he continued, “He’s just getting the coordinates right, so we don’t end up somewhere else.”

“And that’s all he told you?”

“He also added that our bodies and minds would be 'acclimatising' to the new environment here, so there’s a chance we might feel a little weird or impulsive, and if we did, we should be telling him.”

“Feel... impulsive?”

“Yes.”

“Well. That’d be the ‘drama’ then, wouldn’t it,” Sherlock mused thoughtfully, fingers now tapping a rhythm at his lips, recalling the pleasant notes of Everett’s cologne and displeased at the way it was pleasing.

John, meanwhile, nearly swallowed his tongue in panic.

“Sherlock, he probably meant we should be careful about how, uh, I think, how the magic sort would get to us.” John suggested, chewed on his lip.

“Absolute shit.”

“ _Sherlock_.”

The detective scoffed as he spoke, “What a _convenient_ little tidbit to share with us, John; 'we will feel strange, and do strange things because our bodies are acclimatising to the new Reality', _of course_ and it _obviously_ has nothing to do with any potential kind of chemical product they could have been discreetly administering us," he rolled his eyes, "This is literally Baskervilles all over again; I was done with all the nonsense of a chemically charged smog bedazzling my senses.”

“Sherlock -”

“It’s probably the tea, John. It’s in the tea, it’s in the food and Everett Ross is also under the influence like us.”

“We aren’t drugged, Sherlock,” John sighed.

Sherlock outright scoffed indignantly, “Well, aren’t you the authority for what’s real and what’s not!”

“Sherlock-” John started, and when the detective refused to heed, John pawed at his shoulder until he had the man’s full attention and only then did he continue, “Sherlock, listen to me; we didn’t have any tea when he made us literally _fly_ across the lobby.”

“They have access to some very advanced rigging technology. It’s impeccable though it pains me to admit, but it’s the only logical explanation.”

“And the man did just outright _destroy_ your Taser without touching it and then proceeded to dissolve it into thin air!”

“Smoke and mirrors,” Sherlock dismissed with a shrug of a shoulder.

“He teleported us to this very room!”

“ _John!_ Are you listening to the words you're using?! It’s all staged like a play and none of it real!”

John stared at the detective in confused irritation. “Where is this coming from?! Just an hour ago we were all sitting right _here_ , discussing about how to send us to our real location and you were debating, with a Sorceror, the details of memory removal via magic!!”

Sherlock have him a long and steady look that spoke enough. It took two heartbeats for John to catch on.

“You were… you were _pretending_ , Sherlock?!”

“Do you know me at all, John Watson!? Did you really think I’d believe a man with facial hair like that, and dressed like a derivative of Dracula, telling me that I am a fictional figment of someone’s imagination created from an alternate universe and that he’d replace my memory afterwards so I don’t collapse the Reality with the information I have gathered?! What should I believe in next, Fairy Dust?!”

“Well then, _thank God_ you weren’t around when he mentioned the Avengers!”

“The _what?!_ ” Sherlock spat.

“Never mind,” John groaned, rubbing at his forehead.

“And what kind of a title is _Sorceror Supreme_ ; it could not be more whimsically self righteous!”

“This coming from a man who has proclaimed himself a Consulting Detective!”

Sherlock looked at him with a insulted frown and hissed, “He’s probably fed you more fabricated folklore, and you’re buying into it. I was pretending to believe their nonsense because the only way to get out of this lunatic museum would be to play along while I find the hole in the system that gives it away and rip it open enough for us to escape.”

John was conflicted.

“Sherlock, think about it, the technology we use today may seem like witchcraft to the people of the Middle Ages. What if this, the magic, Mystic Arts, it's just that? Something we cannot understand? Magic could be a kind of Science, couldn't it? A kind of science that can’t be explained because humanity hasn't found ways to explain it as of yet? What if-”

“John,” Sherlock shook his head, “Science is about logic and derivation, not glowing spells, enchantments and supreme Sorcerors! Technology advances at an exponential rate, we have reached an era where it is easier to prove something as Science than denote anything unexplained as magic or witchcraft And you may be right, magic can be a form of advanced Science, but calling it that is simply _ghastly!_ The unexplained is not _magic_ ; its merely waiting to be scientifically proven.”

John purses his lips and set his jaw. “Alright then, putting away the Mystic Arts, what about the fact the both of them look exactly like us? I'm very sure I wasn't born with a twin!”

“And that is what simply adds to the level of danger we are in, John. This not a normal case of makeup and prosthetics; these men have access to technology so advanced that they can make such identical copies of near perfection and I daresay something scandalously illegal could be involved. Their mannerisms are identical to ours and yet different enough for us to feel they’re are not copies.”

John nodded thoughtfully, and mumbled, “They’re definitely not wearing masks or prosthetics..”

“And how are you so sure?” Sherlock frowned at him suspiciously.

John bit his tongue before he succumbed to the temptation of stating that he very well almost _snogged_ the Sorceror, just to see the look on the detective’s face.

Instead, a disgruntled John huffed, “Oh, I don’t know, Sherlock, maybe I _do_ have some observational skills or maybe prolonged exposure to your obsessive compulsion for details has given me some!!”

“Well, I hope it has also given you some common sense; you’ll believe anything your senses perceive for you, unaware how deceived you are without the logistics!! And how the fragile senses can be deceived indeed!” Sherlock snapped, tugging his Belstaff around him petulantly.

“Can the senses be deceived enough to do _this?!_ ” John spat, thrusting out his left hand.

Sherlock turned to him annoyed, looking down at John’s fingers as if it were something absurd.

“And what do you want me to do? Kiss your hand like you were the Queen of England?!”

“Deduce my hand, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s eye twitched. “John, have you gone m-”

“ _Sherlock_. _Deduce my hand. Now_.”

Frowning as if inconvenienced, Sherlock turned his body towards John from within his armchair with a great flourish, looking down at the doctor's hand in a bored gaze.

It took only approximately three seconds for Sherlock to sit up in alarm.

“That’s right,” John nodded, and then after a moment he added, “Actually, it’s left, but you know.”

Sherlock seized John’s hand with his long fingers grasped around John’s wrist, inspecting it carefully. John tried to ignore the hair on the back of his neck stand from the contact.

“Your intermittent tremors-”

“He cured my tremor; Doctor Strange did, I mean.”

Sherlock looked up at him, eyes whizzing rapidly between both of John’s in a medley of emotions; eager, excited, sceptical, unsure, curious, disbelieving, thirsting for answers, all at once.

John felt at ease; he was far more comfortable with the excitably curious side of Sherlock than his ominously silent one.

“How?! These cannot be cured!”

“I know. He used the Mystic Arts in front of me. It was golden, and sparked. He just gestured around my hand using these glowing Mandalas, and the tremors were gone. It wasn’t just visual effects, Sherlock, I felt it; under my skin, in my flesh.”

“ _Impossible_ ,” Sherlock muttered.

“Yet here it is. All possible and everything,” John sighed in defeat, sitting back in his armchair, his right hand rubbing across his face. Sherlock continued to inspect the skin of John’s hand for any injection points, suspicious lacerations, marks or any possible signs of tampering. At one point, his hand was so close to Sherlock’s face he could feel the man’s heavy breathing launching in puffs against his knuckles.

Snatching his hand away, John frowned at an alarmed Sherlock, who remained holding air, eyes glassy as innumerable rounds of analysis processed in his brain.

“Hate to be saying this, Sherlock, but it could be real; all of this. As bloody real as it can get. I can hardly digest it myself. This could be something that is actually beyond even your comprehension, Sherlock.”

The detective turned back in his chair, his pale fingers steepled under his chin, eyes staring straight ahead into nothingness again.

There was a peaceful silence for maybe a minute or two, before Sherlock’s deep baritone rolled across the air between their chairs.

“John, have you looked at your phone?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Well, there wasn’t any signal at all.”

“Exactly. This residential area has good signal coverage. Hence, the only explanation for our phones is that our communication has been disabled; we are off the grid, John, and I think they did it when they were talking to us from the lobby. I know Mycroft is already looking for us and for the first time I doubt if he can track us anymore. It’s only a matter of time before he panics and sends the Secret Service to find us.”

John gaped at him silently, until a sudden, dreadful thought came to his mind.

“Sherlock, you don't think this could be Moriarty, do you?”

“I’ve already ruled that out. Moriarty plays with Life and Death, not Magic and Science; the latter things are beneath him. If he came to know someone’s doing this to us, he’d be laughing his head off seeing I haven’t got us out of this mess five minutes into it,” Sherlock grumbled the end of his statement.

John sank into his seat, and felt slight relief at the assurance that the cheeky psychopath with the affinity for disaster wouldn’t be involved in any of this; it was stressful as it was.

“And while you were speaking to Strange, I spoke to Everett Ross. His side of the story is removed from the sorcery; a perspective of an outsider. He told me about how he knew you and me, through the books, how he grew up with the idea of us as role models.”

John waited for the remainder of Sherlock’s observations. It came after a steady exhale.

“All of it is just data, John. Everett’s been planted here with us, to give us a sense of normalcy to relate to. It’s all very well spun; an elaborate web of interconnected stories fed to us as information, every detail accounted for and supplementing the illusion to make it more believable to us, like an interactive Haunted House.”

A pause later, he went on, silencing John before he could say anything, “If every instance was taken into consideration, anything can be meticulously planned to a near flawless state and with the help of advanced technology, it can be seamlessly believable and convincing. But there’s always a catch, John; a hole in the weave, a lapse in the judgement, a tape undone in the props, a detail overlooked, _something_ , that gives it all away. And while I usually can spot them, I’m unable to see it. And now, they seem to have the ability to make medical changes to us, to go the further length to make us believe how much it is all ‘real’.”

Sherlock’s troubled voice grew more silent, morose even. It made John look at him in concern.

It took another bout of a minute’s silence before Sherlock spoke.

“My mind is playing tricks on me again, and I can’t trust my senses fully. I know what I’m seeing, hearing, perceiving, feeling, but none of it aligns with logic or facts. Unlike last time at the Facility, I’m not afraid. But I am unsure; I’m moved to wonder whether everything here, including this place, the people, Everett Ross, even you, John, all of this is just one elaborate dream I’m experiencing under my 5% solution of cocaine.”

John studied his companion’s frowning face.

“Then I hope you administered me some as well, Sherlock, because now I’m unsure if I'm a figment of your imagination or not.”

Sherlock stifled a grin as he shook his head. John cracked a tense smile despite everything.

“John, that cloak, for example, that red garment, it is the one thing bothering me the most; it’s too _human_ ,” Sherlock grimaced in annoyance, “The animatronics is undeniably brilliant, and so neatly is the system hidden that it looks a little too believable. I can’t get my head around it!!” he angrily dug his long fingers into his hair and ruffled his own locks as if shaking it would dispel the cobwebs of doubts blinding him.

Silence fell again, grating on John’s nerves for one very, long, agonising minute.

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm,” more of a rhetorical sound thrown in his direction as a response.

“Suppose all of this is a ruse like you’re saying, then why would they go through the trouble of ‘sending us back'?”

“To keep the story going; keeping us in the loop, using reverse psychology to keep our senses from figuring out the what is real and what is fabricated. Like the little trick with the book,” with an almost venomous pause on his statement, Sherlock picked up the old novel, and went into one of his theatrical acts, all flailing fingers and faux excitement, “Oh _golly_ , would you look at that! The book, in which we are fictional characters, is half ‘ _erased’_ to prevent us from knowing our future which would subsequently cause the demise of our Reality!” he then proceeded to scoff harshly, “ _Of_ _course_ , how conveniently placed as if the book wasn’t already preemptively printed so, to further push the illusion!!”

He tossed the book back on the table with a huff of indignant annoyance.

John looked at his friend with the indecision clear in his eyes. “But the writing - Sherlock, its- ”

“Yes, its the work of a professional; someone’s gone through the harrowing trouble of reading all of your blog posts, compiling notes and analysing your writing style with attention to detail so acute that they could fabricate the writing in your voice from another era, and fool even you.”

“And _you’re_ not fooled?”

Sherlock gave him his flattest stare.

John sighed, “Of course you're not; you’re bloody Sherlock Holmes.”

“I know your writing better than anyone, John,” Sherlock huffed, fingers steepling under his chin again.

“Do you, now?” John peered at him curiously, suddenly registering the remark.

There was a slow blink, before Sherlock closed his eyes, “I am a man of observation bordering on obsessive compulsive as you like to keep reminding me. And I would rather believe the writing is the work of a plagiarist than of you from another 'dimension' and 'time', or such rubbish!”

John set his jaw, chewing on his lower lip in contemplation.

“Alright, and the fact the pages were clearly yellowed from prolonged years of use? It can’t have just been printed for the theatrics!”

“You underestimate the power of technology, John. They’ve clearly planned this very meticulously; printing it halfway on textured paper that has been synthetically worn out to mimic old usage. And combined with simple graphic design elements like ink or tea stains, and dog eared creased marks, it can easily convince a layman.”

John remained silent and, to an extent, not convinced at all.

Sherlock looked at John, beyond offended.

“Oh, _come off it,_ John, would you seriously still rather believe that we are fictional characters from that book in a Parallel Universe?!”

John blinked back at Sherlock.

“ _John!”_

“I don’t know, Sherlock, _I really don’t!_ ” John snapped. He then shrugged, sulking, “At least I can admit there are things I do not know.”

Sherlock grumbled under his breath, fingers almost twitching where they were under his chin, “Of course, instead of dissecting and questioning the sights put before you, you lot would just take everything at face value and go along with how everyone around you react to it; crowd mentality at its peak, surely, but then again, you’re the one who assumed and believed that a genetically modified _demon hound_ was attacking you when it was I who planted the imagery in your head which was simply heightened by the drug infused in the fog!”

There a sudden shuffle as John’s upper body lunged out of his backrest and he grabbed Sherlock’s right arm in a grip so vice it shocked the taller man out of his thoughts. He could feel his pale skin bruise under the grip.

“John, what are you-”

The John Watson who stared at him with shadowed eyes at such close quarters was encased in a deadly stillness that, Sherlock hated to admit, intimidated and terrified him greatly.

“ _Sherlock_ , I swear to God, if you are involved in this elaborate scheme to fool me and make some _big_ point-” John’s deep blue eyes were wild.

Sherlock blinked, smarting a little under John’s death grip.

“John, I’m not involved in any of this; if I were to prank you, I’d pick something a little more intelligent or elegant!! How low do you think of me?! All of this magic nonsense is far too comic book for my taste, surely you see that! And if I were trying to deceive you, why would I be dissecting my observations with you?! Yes, it’d make me seem unassuming, but you’re easy to distract, John, I wouldn’t need to be so elaborate!”

There were very rare instances when Sherlock felt burnt by a man’s gaze and one of those instances happened to be right then, as John stared at him wordlessly, his strong jaw working in a clench, nostrils flaring under quick and very controlled measures of breath, deep blue eyes steadily holding a very terse hold on Sherlock’s, scanning him in a way not dissimilar to the detective’s own method.

Despite the accusation, Sherlock held his own, understanding full well why John would feel out of odds about everything, which, Sherlock admitted, was also his own fault, putting him through that humiliating experience at Baskerville.

“John, I have no part in this,” the detective spoke with sincere finality.

Both men stared at each other intensely, in an effort to convince each other where words wouldn’t reach.

John relaxed his gaze a little, his creased eyebrows softening, “Good. Because, _by God_ , Sherlock, if I don’t have you on my side, I _will_ go mental.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about, John.”

The pale blue eyes of the detective shone with reassuring confidence. John took solace in them.

Sherlock leaned further in, his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “John, we can’t trust anyone here, and to an extent not even our own senses, but we need to trust each other; we are in their arena now and if we don’t play along, we will not get out of whatever it is that they plan on doing with us.”

John nodded, pursing his lips.

There was a rustle across from them and they whipped their heads to see Everett stare at them as he reached for a toffee from the heap on the table.

“Am I interrupting something?” he grinned at the sight before him as he chewed on his toffee; the pair, nearly in each other’s arms over the armrests of their chairs, their heads almost touching, with John’s hand gripped on Sherlock’s arm as if for life.

Jolting away from each other, they cleared their throats.

“Yes, well, we, we were discussing some, confidential matters,” John tried, adjusting his crumpled jacket.

“Which remain none of your business,” Sherlock added, coldly.

“Of course,” Everett mused, a secret smile on his face.

Sherlock's mouth had only poised for a remark, but there was an immense explosive sound, startling all three men to look up into the direction it seemed to have come from.

"What-"

Almost immediately, there came another, and this time it was louder and the floor shook from under their feet. Everett, who had been standing, grabbed the nearest armchair for support, while Sherlock and John held onto the smooth edge of the tabletop from their seats. There was a distant rumble as the house heaved and groaned in the phantom impact, several artefacts tinkling from inside their protective boxes before a hush fell and it became silent again.

“What the _hell?!_ ” Everett exclaimed looking around. Sherlock and John stood up in alarm.

“Was that an earthquake?” Sherlock snapped, looking up at the structural supports in the room to assess the incoming damage.

“Better not be one of the 'external' threats,” John gulped.

“The what??” Sherlock turned to him.

John shook his head in response.

There were subsequent, slow thumps vibrating in the ground as if a giant fist was knocking on the walls.

“You two, stay where you are!” Everett spoke, one hand outstretched to them and the left hand pulling out his gun from his holster.

Everett immediately yelled at the top of his voice, “STRANGE! WE HAVE A SITUATION!”

No sooner he yelled, a figure swept into the room, three tomes under his arm, cloak fluttering as he levitated in the air, his face turned into the distance where the sounds came from.

“A situation indeed,” Stephen frowned as he gently lowered to his feet on the floor, “A few rogues are trying to break into the Sanctum, using some kind of tech laced with Mystic Arts. I’m reading energy signatures, and it seems to be forbidden magic.”

“What?! They're carrying magical tech now?” Everett hissed, “ _Jesus_ , _fuck-_ ”

Another explosion sounded, shaking the ground. The three men wobbled on their feet, grabbing onto the edge of the table. More artefacts clinked from inside their glass casing. Stephen, as still as a statue, seemed to be mentally scanning the entire house for break ins.

Yet another explosion took place, this time from another end of the house.

John snatched a glance at Stephen; he looked much calmer than he should have been given his house, which also doubled as the Mystic HQ, was under some kind of heavy attack.

“They’ve surrounded the Sanctum Sanctorum,” Stephen looked in the new direction, his eyebrows creasing, “But none have got in; they can’t.”

Everett’s phone rang, startling them all, and he grabbed it to answer the call immediately.

Meanwhile, Stephen turned to the detective and the doctor, “We need to go, now-” he started, at which the recipients looked blank and confused with all the ruckus.

Everett ended his short call and spoke in urgency, “Mr Stark just called me; a couple of guys have landed on some experimental modulated weaponry from Hammer Industries and they’re trying to break into Stark Industries as well. They’re armed and the tech is highly unstable; a Code Orange has been slapped on the whole thing. I gotta report for evacuation protocol and backup. We need to go, asap, Strange, they need you there too.”

There was a pause as both men suddenly seem to realise something together and turned to look at Sherlock and John who were merely watching the exchange.

“Well, shit,” Everett huffed, a hand flying up to rub at his temple.

“Agent Ross, I have everything I need to send these men back; I highly consider accomplishing this first before we take off, or it could turn into an even bigger problem than the one at hand.”

“Then get it done with, I’ll meet you at the usual rendezvous -”

Before anyone could say another word, a sudden gold spark lit from the other end of the room, catching the attention of all four men.

Sherlock and John gaped at the sight unfolding before their very eyes.

The small spark of golden light seemed to spin mid air and then grew large, splitting into a yawning circle, and then becoming big enough a hole to reveal a tall, plump Asian man in maroon robes that seemed to have sustained some damage. He urgently stepped in from the hole which then disappeared from behind him. His no-nonsense, tight expression turned to Stephen with an immediate urgency.

“Wong?” Stephen addressed the new occupant of the room.

Wong huffed with a frown, “The London Sanctum is under attack and we need you there. Some misled practitioners of Mystic Arts are armed with advanced weapons and they have detected an interdimensional anomaly here in the Sanctum Sanctorum. They are trying to gain entry through the one in London to get here, and they might go for the one in Hong Kong next; they know that the three Sanctums are connected.”

“Yeah, it all checks out,” Everett nodded, “There’s a group attacking Stark Industries as well, they must have split up. Mr Stark called me himself for you guys; looks like it was getting a little out of hand for the nonmagical Avengers. We need to leave right now before it reaches Code Red.”

Wong nodded at Everett and added, “My response team is holding off the rogues at the London and Hong Kong Sanctums, I came here to check what the anom-”

Wong froze midway when he suddenly registered the two other men in the room.

His small eyes narrowed as he stared wordlessly at Sherlock and John, who stared back just as blank. Wong’s steely gaze took in their faces, their outfits, their stance and put two and two together almost instantly.

He turned to the Sorceror Supreme, “Are these two men the _anomaly_ that the rogues detected here, Strange?”

Stephen pursed his lips, a deep frown creased in his brows, “That’d be my guess as well. They are from another Reality and the paper which I used to bring Thor and Loki here has ended up in their Reality, sought them and transported them here. If I’m correct, their arrival may have alerted the rogue assailants about the location of this Sanctum, and of the one in London since they are from the London of their Reality.”

“And how long have they been here?”

“Approximately one and a half hours. Do we have any information on what master these rogues serve?”

Wong’s face tightened as he answered, “Unclear, but whoever it is, they are harnessing and equipping the rogues with very dark, forbidden Mystic Arts.”

Stephen clenched his jaw, a deep, ominous look washing over his face. Wong then frowned at the two British men questioningly.

Saving Wong the trouble, Everett stated as calm as he could, “That’s Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.”

Wong carefully ran his glances between Sherlock and Stephen, and then John and Everett.

The CIA operative cleared his throat, “They are. For real.”

Without any emotion betraying his reaction to said information, Wong turned to Stephen again.

“The presence of these two men is going to prove dangerous; the assailants are going to attempt to infiltrate other dimensions, using them as a beacon. You need to send them back before the rogues make it here. I’ve fortified the Hong Kong and London Sanctums for now, but it can’t hold long enough. You have limited time to work on the ritual. I suggest you get on it, Strange.”

Stephen nodded as he made to leave, as another explosion sounded in the distance.

Everett added urgently, “Wong, you and I can intercept the rogues attacking Stark Industries right now, while Strange gets this done.”

“It’s not safe for you to step out of the Sanctum, not without Strange. And I’m not strong enough to deter all of them with this unfamiliar dark energy.”

“Then how long is this ritual thing going to take? We all need to leave!”

“Fifteen minutes to work the spell, Agent Ross,” Stephen answered firmly before turning to the two dubious men, “Mr Holmes, John, please follow me. Immediately,” and he stepped away, cloak swishing behind him as he disappeared around the bend of an aisle.

Sherlock stared at Wong before being tugged away by John who followed in Stephen’s wake without a single word.

Left alone, Wong turned to the shorter man.

Everett got to work pulling out both his guns from his holster and emptying them of bullets. He also pulled out from a compartment in his holster, a very sophisticated black casing with Wakandan runes etched across it.

Taking out some polished silver bullets that seemed to buzz an electric blue, he fed them into his guns in quick, practiced successions.

Wong watched him load his forearms, silently.

“Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?”

“Yup.”

“Arthur Conan Doyle’s?”

“Yup.”

“But they look… so ‘ _modern’_.”

“They're as alternative version from another reality.”

“And they look like you and Strange.”

“Wait, really, didn’t notice that,” Everett deadpanned at Wong who frowned into the distance where the three men had disappeared.

“Like inverses of each other,” Wong mused to himself as Everett cocked his gun and checked it for any faults.

“Kinda, yeah,” Everett nodded, before turning to Wong and eyeing the tears in his robes, “You okay there?”

Wong turned to look at him, “Yes, the fight got a little out of hand.”

“How many were there?”

“A lot. But not enough to outnumber our teams.”

“You think we can dispose of them easily?”

“We can, if we ask Mr Stark for some backup; magical tech is worse than one can imagine.”

“Got it. I’ll also let T’challa know; could use some vibranium backups too,” he pulled out his phone.

Wong nodded.

Sending his message and securing his guns back into his holster, he added, “Once Strange is done with sending the two of them back, we can get down and dirty for real,” Everett set his jaw to flint, the adrenaline making his eyes bright.

Wong continued to look thoughtfully into the direction where Stephen had disappeared with the two men.

\---


	6. The Game

John and Sherlock fought nausea as they were once again transported into existence at a different part of the Sanctum.

Sherlock’s eyes were whizzing around him wildly again. John felt his head spin a little.

Stephen was immediately buzzing around the chamber they landed in; a circular room of solid grey concrete, with an insurmountably high dome ceiling, and the curved wall was lined with ancient tomes, mysterious bottles with questionable liquids and powders. Several antique boxes of gold and silver ornaments remained across the shelving.

In the centre of the room was stationed a large, ornate, wooden table with nothing but a book propped open at a page convulsing and glowing with golden runes, and a square tablet of grey stone, the size of a petri dish.

Above them they heard more thumps of muffled explosions.

“Stephen, where are we?” John asked, face turned up at the curved dome ceiling that was so impossibly high that he could even see it except for a eeerie, inky black darkness hanging there like a fog.

Sherlock, who had been looking at a curious artefact mounted on the wall, turned around to frown at John’s addressing of the Sorceror.

Stephen was carefully placing the two strands of their hair on the small stone tablet as if they were made of fragile glass. “This is a very secure underground chamber meant for uninterrupted spell work; only Wong and I can access this space,” he looked up at John and gave him a charming smile, “Also doubles up as a Panic Room.”

“Well, that’s a relief because panic is definitely a relatable emotion at the moment,” John replied nervously, and as if on cue, another booming explosion sounded.

The ground, however, didn’t shake in the least.

"Did you just say we are underground? How below the ground are we actually?" John couldn't stop staring into the voided ceiling again.

Stephen gave him an apologetic glance.

"Okay, alright, don't need that information," John added, “Are you sure they won’t break into the house? It sounds like they’re using heavy duty explosives.”

Stephen carefully turned the pages of another book he pulled out for reference from thin air, “They cannot enter because the Seal of _Vishanti_ protects this Sanctorum from foreign entrance by entities whom I, as the Sorceror Supreme, haven’t authorised.”

“The- Seal of, Seal of What?” John asked just as he caught a glance of Sherlock rolling his eyes obnoxiously.

“ _Vishanti;_ they were powerful deities, and the Anomaly Rue symbol on the giant rose window is the Seal of _Vishanti,_ made by one of the _Vishanti_ , the first Sorceror Supreme named Agamotto." Stephen carefully drew a circle around the small stone tablet on the table and etched invisible markings as he spoke, "The rose window itself is a multi dimensional portal, and the Seal protects both the window and the entire Sanctum from foreign breach through it. As long as it’s up there, nothing can break in forcibly, high tech or not."

Sherlock's face was blank with cynicism.

John frowned as he pondered on the name, “Agamotto?…” and then his face cleared as he remembered, “Oh, the eye medallion on your chest? The one that alters time…” he trailed as he also remembered the chain of events following his introduction to the ornament from before.

Stephen glanced up momentarily catching John’s eye with a secretive smile, “Yes, John. Just the one.”

John’s ears warmed almost instantly and he cleared his throat, “Right.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at them. “I’d seen that rose window earlier; quite a piece of architecture. Is the glass bulletproof as well?” he ended with a twitch of an eyebrow.

John shot him a threatening glare and Sherlock sent back a cool, pointed glance of dismissal.

Stephen positioned his hands just above the strands of hair on the tablet at the table; his fingers out like he was trying to warm his palms on a fire.

“Well, that’s enough chit chat, let’s send you boys home, shall we?” Stephen straightened up as he addressed them, “John, Mr Holmes, please stand there, across from me.”

In the warm lighting, Sherlock's eyes shone like neon spots of scrutiny directed specifically at Stephen, but he followed suit silently as John moved to where Stephen seemed to point with one long finger. Once they were in position standing side by side, Stephen nodded at them encouragingly despite the urgency he tried to mask from his eyes, and raised his hands to his chest, to form a curious hand gesture.

“Watch this,” John nudged Sherlock’s side excitedly. 

“Do I look asleep to you?”

John shot him a pointed look and focused on Stephen.

Sherlock felt a prickling burn of some foreign emotion he detested and pushed it away with all the other absurd ones he was experiencing today.

Just as the first spark of light formed in front of Stephen, there was sudden pop in the air and all three men turned to see that Wong had appeared at the far end of the chamber from a spinning 'portal' like before.

“Was that supposed to happen?” John mumbled in pure confusion.

Before Stephen could voice his own surprise, many things happened to register at once; Wong had an odd spider-shaped amulet curling around his bicep that Stephen was sure wasn’t there before, and the burnt cloth around it meant it had been hiding under his sleeve the entire time and had burnt its way out, and it was reading heaving amounts of dark Mystic Arts.

Stephen stepped back in shock as he took in Wong’s oddly coloured eyes like pools of bottomless black.

But the most surprising sight was the fact that Wong was struggling because a very stubborn Everett hung off his back, his strong arms curled tight around Wong’s stout neck like a relentless ape.

“HES POSSESSED OR SOMETHING!!” Everett yelled out loud with effort as Wong shook his large body like an inconvenienced elephant.

There was a blast of purplish light, as Wong expelled Everett off him with a pulse of magic and Stephen all but caught the flung agent in the nick of time in a web of golden runes before inertia could smash his body to a pulp against the stone walls.

Sherlock and John gaped, stepping back in quick strides as Wong turned to them, his eyes intimidating and swirling black with no sclera in sight.

“Oh, this looks bad,” John groaned, nervously taking in Wong’s large bulk, as he gulped, “Sherlock?”

John turned to look at Sherlock who had put on one of his practiced theatrical looks of anxiousness, tailored to a near perfection, his bright blue eyes scanning the approaching Wong. But he leaned at John’s side and in a voice at complete odds with his facial expression, he whispered, “I’m curious, John, all these special effects; how far will they go?”

John remembered their heated conversation and licked his lips; he tried to tell himself that all of this was fake, but the panic beating in his heart was absolutely real.

At least he didn’t have to pretend he was terrified.

Nevertheless, John swallowed his primal terror and reached behind himself to pull out his Service Pistol, cocking it up to aim it at the large, advancing Wong who looked very convincing as a man possessed.

Just before Wong reached them, Stephen swam in, stationing himself smoothly between the two British men and the possessed Sorceror.

The red Cloak spread out to its full trapezoidal span, completely blocking John and Sherlock from Wong’s sight, like a shield.

Everett came up from behind the doctor and detective, startling them. He caught them by the scruff of their collars, tugging them backwards furthest away from the Sorcerors, as Stephen distracted Wong.

The two men and Everett ended up near the curvature of the room, next to a shelving unit of glass jars.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Sherlock hissed, tugging his collar away from the officer to straighten it to its crisp upright state, “They’re going to fight using magic!”

“Yeah, no _shit_ , Sherlock!” Everett scoffed loudly in response.

 _“Excuse me?”_ Sherlock whipped around to shoot him his most offended look, complete with the disapproving upturn of mouth and tipping up of his chin.

Everett glared despite himself, “You need to stay _away_ from the fight; you’re going to be a liability, especially when you’re supposed to be in one piece to be sent back home!”

Sherlock pursed his lips and turned to look at the two Sorcerors who carefully circled each other like panthers waiting for the first strike.

“Wong, you have been compromised!” Stephen yelled firmly and struck his fists against each other in a purposeful pattern and swung out his arms into a combat mode, a disk of swirling golden Mandalas spinning at each fist, washing the edges of his profile in soft gold.

John turned to Sherlock.

Sherlock whispered, “Holograms, very effective.”

“ _Hand me the nomads,”_ Wong spoke, his amplified voice absurdly booming in the large room.

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to do that,” Stephen stated firmly.

The very next moment a fight erupted.

Golden sparks flew against the deep purple bolts of light that Wong sent flying Stephen’s way. Sherlock’s eyes followed Stephen’s hand as he materialised a long whip of golden light, cracking it against the wall for momentum and sent it to lasso Wong around the abdomen successfully.

Without missing a beat, Stephen performed complex hand gestures and out of his shaking extended hands sprung a giant golden Mandala that beautifully split into ten, all of which zoomed to surround Wong, caging him like a fence and keeping him pinned to the floor on his knees.

“ _Give me the nomads!!_ ” Wong struggled aloud as Stephen’s hands made circular motions in the air, making a gaping upright hole appear in front of him from a spiral of more sparks.

“You didn’t say 'please',” Stephen offered with a smile.

This time, like a Magpie, Sherlock’s face twitched as his eyes noticed a flash of gold; an odd rectangular ring that seemed to connect two fingers on Stephen’s moving hand glimmered in the light of the sparks.

The spiral of sparks made a door-sized oval showing a view of another chamber.

It took Sherlock a moment to realise that, according to ‘the act', the Sorceror was planning to transport Wong out of the room and elsewhere, probably a secure room he wouldn’t be able to escape in his feral state.

 _How original_ , Sherlock thought to himself, rolling his eyes.

Seeing his chance to extract more answers, Sherlock poised himself like a cat ready to pounce, and without a second’s notice, he bolted off heading straight for the Sorceror’s portal, leaving a gaping John and Everett behind.

“ _Sherlock!”_ John shouted in alarm, almost setting off after him, but Everett’s iron grip found its hold on his biceps, making him bounce back in place next to Everett.

“What are you-” he struggled as Everett held his arms back to keep him still.

“Stop it! There is no point!”

John stilled as he and his doppelganger watched the tall Englishman with his wild curls hurl himself into a smooth dive just as Stephen hauled Wong into the portal.

The portal shrunk close into a tiny dot exactly as the very heels of Sherlock’s shoes made through.

The room was suddenly silent, save for the breathing of the two identical men.

John freed himself from Everett’s hold and turned to him, rubbing at his biceps where he was grabbed a moment ago.

“Where did they go?! And why did you stop me-”

“Strange probably took Wong to an isolated chamber, and your stupid boyfriend is enough distraction without you joining in!!” Everett snapped back, despite the worry on his face. He sent John a patronising look.

John looked back, indignant. “For the love of God, he is _not_ my-”

“Even if we went after him, we wouldn’t have reached him on time, and it doesn’t matter, because whatever he’s planning to do, Stephen will send him back here anyway. And right now, at least one of you is away from Wong and simultaneously near the ritual, and that’s our priority, Doctor Watson!”

Everett frowned at him with finality as he straightened his holster and grumbled under his breath, something about 'babysitting' and 'national duty'.

John stared at the spot the men disappeared from.

“What exactly happened to your friend, Wong?” asked John.

“Someone from the rogue Sorcerors planted some kind of magical tracking 'thing' on Wong, I think; it activated as soon as you guys left. That bitch, Wong, he’s hella hefty; he got me good just as I realised he was possessed,” Everett winced as he moved his right shoulder, “But I clung on as soon as he teleported to this room. I think he was intending to come here and catch Strange off guard, mid ritual.”

“And now Sherlock’s with them, _Jesus_. God help me, him knocking that big head of his onto something and blacking out in some corner is the only way he’d stay out of anything!”

Everett shot him a weird look and then nodded as he understood.

John cleared his throat noisily and willed himself calm; his ears were still ringing with the ‘danger _’_ alarm that usually wreaks havoc in his head when Sherlock pulls one of his spontaneous, impromptu stunts.

After a minute of silence, the weight of their situation rested on their shoulders.

“There’s no door in this room,” John observed, feeling a kind of impulsive curiosity seep in again, “How does anyone step in or out?”

“Only Strange and Wong can enter or leave this place, and bring or take away people as well, which means we are not going anywhere, and we wait. Besides, the ritual to send you back is happening here, so you’re staying here till he comes back with Curly McTroublesome,” Everett walked over to the book that was propped open for the ritual, and peered at it blankly, before plopping down on a wooden chair nearby.

“Aren’t you the warmest,” John bit into the air sourly, watching Everett pull out his smartphone.

“I know; I’m a delight,” Everest replied flatly, clearing his throat, thumbs now furiously jabbing at the screen of his phone. He then frowned angrily, “Damn this place; it’s beyond cell coverage!”

John sighed, looking at the curved wall, his mind turning on itself at the drastic chain of events, and Sherlock’s voice slipped into his brain: _We are in their arena now and if we don’t play along, we will not get out of whatever it is that they plan on doing with us._

 _Oh Sherlock,_ John groaned to himself, rubbing at his face in tiredness, _I was never one for theatre._

\---

Sherlock landed with a heavy thud, a grunt escaping him as his body hit the hardwood floor, knocking the wind out of his lungs, and sending stars behind his eyelids.

Slightly disoriented, he felt the need to throw up as his insides readjusted to whatever he had just experienced. He felt his extremities shake as he tried to get up, his breaths bursting in small, grazing puffs. He ended up coughing, and he immediately ran his fingertips across the skin of his neck and wrists for any dart points.

 _No drug recently administered,_ his brain observed, _then, everything I just experienced was all from the previous dosage, perfect. Shall we?_

Scrambling to all fours with some effort, Sherlock looked up to see Wong and Stephen engaged in noisy and colourful combat; all flying hand gestures, sweeping body movements, and brilliantly coloured light.

_Good, so they havent noticed me slip in._

Sherlock looked behind himself to see that the ‘portal' he came through was gone, and the room they were in was yet another chamber, but a quick sweep of his eyes told him it was rectangular in plan, with multiple alcoves leading to more rooms. The current space they were in had several shelves and cabinets with what looked like potions, and odd plant parts suspended in liquids and an occasional odd shaped object placed on a planchette of sorts.

Placed in the centre of the room were two long tables, leaden with odd equipment.

The space resembled a medieval laboratory while also being a wizard's lair, the potent amalgamation altogether looking ready to birth a Frankenstein’s Monster of untold horror.

Sherlock shakily hoisted himself up on his feet, his heart beating a mile a minute as the facts settled in; there was no possibility he could have been ‘transported’ to another space, but he blanched, unable to find an inkling of proof, except for the receeding nausea in his gut and immaculate suspicion fueling his senses.

Sherlock turned to watch the Sorcerors instead.

He pursed his lips as his mind supplied in rapid fast notes.

_Why? Why are these two men engaged in such choreographed combat when there is no one watching, unless they know I'm here, but they're moved away, expecting me to follow then? What is it for, this theatrical- unless, oh, unless, there are cameras recording this, oh, OH, of course, a kind of scripted reality show with John and me as two unassuming participants and our impromptu real time reactions to their little 'play', I see, makes for a very entertaining watch, doesn’t it, watching the unaware scramble for meaning in the middle of choreographed chaos-_

Mid scathing scoff, Sherlock dove for the wall when he spotted from afar Stephen swirling his hand in a tight circle, sweeping Wong off his feet and up into the air in a brilliantly lit whirlwind, and Sherlock felt its impact as his Belstaff whipped around him at the seams and his hair fluttered rapidly at his forehead.

The fight seemed to be getting rather violent and stormy.

“I need to get closer,” Sherlock muttered to himself breathlessly, ducking behind an examination table, peering over the edge just after a misfired bolt of hot, purple light whizzed past him.

Sounds of physical exertion and the shrieks of electricity were rampant in the air, along with the brittle chimes of shattering glass and fragile china, and the heavy crackling of furniture being flung every which way.

Continuous flashes of molten gold and violent purple washed the room in quick successions.

“Wong! You have been compromised!!” came Stephen’s second attempt at communicating with his friend.

More explosions sounded, and the ground shook from the impact.

Sherlock stealthily slipped out of his hiding spot behind the table, and inched across the floor on all fours, to conceal himself behind a large cabinet that shook in the impacts of the combat between the Sorcerors. It was in the perimeter of the fight, from which he could observe the 'combat'.

No sooner that Sherlock let out a breath, the cabinet was snatched away from his side and flung at the wall mid fight, revealing him standing there like a child with his hand in the cookie jar, while Wong and Strange stared at him with whimsically surprised looks on their faces.

 _“Nomad!”_ Wong yelled, directing his open palm at Sherlock with immediate urgency.

Stephen turned his chin to the collar of his Cloak and whispered to it quickly, and the next moment the Cloak unbuckled itself off his chest and flew to Sherlock just as the floor around the detective shuddered and rippled violently to spit out long cables of black, shooting up to attempt grabbing him like sentient vines.

Sherlock, despite his reflexes, only had a moment to widen his eyes as the red fabric zoomed at him with impeccable speed, roughly embracing him in a heavy cocoon, his vision blurred in red for the second time that day, knocking him off his feet. Disoriented from inside the fabric as if trapped inside a potato sack, a fleeting and smelly memory he recalled from a case, Sherlock struggled as he felt himself being snatched away in the nick of time by the blasted Cloak of Levitation, and he heard the cables whip against each other as they grabbed at nothing.

At least, the cloth smelt pleasant, like incense and wood.

Sherlock rolled his eyes; it smelt like _Stephen_.

They must have moved a short distance away, because when the fabric unravelled itself, and Sherlock was sat on his behind on a wooden surface, away from the fight again. Just as he seized a breath of fresh air, the Cloak got to work with great purpose, coiling around his abdomen to trap his arms to his sides like a freshly embalmed Mummy, immobilising him.

“ _Oh,_ _come on!_ ” Sherlock spat, beyond annoyed, wiggling his shoulders, unable to release the binding, “What do you think I could possibly do; _strangle_ you?!”

The collar of the Cloak twitched at him haughtily and shook its ‘head’ in mute exasperation.

That was when Sherlock looked down and realised that the Cloak had flown him up and atop a tall wooden cabinet. It was wide enough for him to sit on, and the roof high enough for him to stand upright if he wanted.

But the main feature of interest mocked him; the cabinet too tall for him to climb down from without the aid of a ladder.

“Oh, you imbecile!”

He was rewarded with a particularly harsh smack across the head, courtesy the Cloak of Levitation.

Down below, he peered as Stephen landed a practiced high kick to an unsuspecting Wong’s face that look purchase and tipped him off balance. Stephen brought his hands together in one loud, thundering clap above his head, to awaken from under Wong’s feet the floor carpets which rose up like giant hands and folded around the possessed Sorceror’s bulk in a vice grip. Projections grew from the floor like buckles, locking onto Wong’s feet, securing him at the ankles and knees.

Sherlock’s trained eyes followed Stephen’s well-built frame as he used the entire strength of his upper body to summon a humongous, bright gold Mandala of beautifully intricate design spitting sparks of yellow and orange, and sweeping his long arms, he sent it crashing onto Wong, the Mandala splitting into multiple rings like a collapsible slingy that tightly cinched the man at the neck, chest, arms, waist and knees, rendering him immobile and very angry.

Stephen Strange took a moment to pant, toned chest heaving, but his hands remained raised to the ready for the slightest attack, as he watched Wong struggle but lose his energy when the Mandalas glowed in a rhythmic pattern. Soon, the bellowing man quietened, left panting and groaning as the anaesthetic effects of Stephen’s spell got to work.

Wong’s head hug forward limply as he became still save for his breathing.

Letting out a huff, Stephen brushed back his dislodged hair off his face and threw a glance at the subdued Asian man, “Easy does it, Wong. You sit tight.”

Immediately, as if recalling something, Stephen whipped his head to look up at the cabinet further away, atop which crouched the frustrated detective bound in red cloth.

Releasing a tired groan, Stephen gestured at the Cloak with two fingers, and Sherlock seized a gasp as the Cloak tugged him out of the cabinet top, and they fell off the edge, and promptly flew across the room as if on a Zipline.

_It had to be some kind of Zipline, surely, but the movements are a little jagged, maybe it’s a flexible sort that can be adjusted, that’d mean there would be more than one rigging line, and blast if I can find any-_

Sherlock landed squarely on his feet right in front of Stephen.

The cloth spun itself off Sherlock, nearly toppling the Englishman off balance as he flailed to a standing posture. The Cloak slid back comfortably onto Stephen’s shoulders with a flourish.

Stephen set his jaw tight as he eyed the defiant Sherlock who stared back, blue on blue.

“What are you doing here?! You were supposed to stay with Agent Ross and John! You could have gotten hurt!”

Sherlock then eyed the bruises and the bleeding cut on Stephen’s face. A bit of his blue robe was charred, and a slight rip sat at his shoulder.

_Window dressing; when did they have time for that? Very efficient team indeed._

“I was curious to see the 'fight', in person,” Sherlock answered carefully, eyes whizzing around to catch the sight of any hidden cameras.

Stephen huffed, “Well, we all know what curiosity did to the cat, don’t we?”

“Yes, but satisfaction brought it back,” Sherlock added, adjusting the scarf around his neck, and ruffling his ebony curls back into place, “No one seems to remember that part of the saying, I wonder why. Perhaps, omission by convenience, then.” Sherlock gave Stephen his most challenging smile.

Stephen threw him a tired glance off the corner of his eyes as if he couldn’t be bothered, as he poised himself, “We need to get back to complete the ritual.”

The Sorceror raised his hands and performed the circling gesture from before to open another ‘portal’. The rectangular ring glinted from his fingers again, catching light from the suspended lanterns up above and sending it dancing on the wall.

This time Sherlock really concentrated, expanding his attention to the maximum.

A spark formed in front of Stephen, it started spitting like struck metal, and spun as it grew into a gaping spiral, which, up close looked the same as it did earlier.

Sherlock stepped discreetly aside to adjust his perspective and see what happens behind as the portal formed quickly. He saw nothing there as well, despite half expecting some kind of a screen or a betrayed glint of metal. He looked up and around the room for any projectors and saw none. He looked around the floor for hologram devices and saw none either. He looked at Stephen’s moving hands and found no projector eye hidden on him.

The spiral, following the same anti clockwise circle Stephen's hand moved in, grew big enough for them to step through. Sherlock reached out his hand and waved it behind the portal, and he touched nothing.

Walking back to position next to Stephen, he looked into the portal like one does a mirror, and he saw John and Everett conversing. The moment they realized that Stephen had opened a portal in their room, the two short men turned abruptly to look at them.

“Sherlock-” came John's yell from inside the portal, but before both men could step in, a large framed talisman came flying in and smacked Stephen right across his side, knocking him onto Sherlock, and together they toppled a few feet away, crashing against the base of a large vase that stopped their roll.

The portal blinked out of existence without Stephen there to keep it.

Groaning, the identical men untangled themselves, Stephen raising himself up on all fours with Sherlock under him gasping at the impact of his fall and the hefty weight of his slightly more muscular lookalike.

Stephen felt a new bruise form at the side of his face.

Stephen looked up to see Wong; he had broken one of the spinning runes binding him at the wrists. Before Stephen could move, Wong broke another, and his free palm twitched free.

Immediately, there was a terrible rumble above Sherlock and Stephen, as the beams running on the ceiling started to shape-shift into ten, stout cuboidal columns that came down at them hard, while glowing in Wong’s possessed purple light.

Sherlock had only a moment to realise they were going to be crushed to a pulp, but a sudden grunt of effort from above him made him open his eyes that he didn’t know he had squeezed shut in alarm.

The sight above him was, as difficult as it was to admit, quite magical.

Stephen had conjured, in the nick of time, a curved dome of a shield to protect them, the brilliant gold light it emitted was so strong it blinded Sherlock a little, forcing him to squint as Stephen held it out his hands to support the intrados, his face pulled tight in concentration. He had pulled up his foot and planted it firmly on the floor next to Sherlock's ribs for leverage, while his other knee pressed on the floor, shaking to maintain balance. The muscles in his arms stood out with increased effort.

The Eye of Agamotto hung from Stephen’s neck, swinging like a pendulum in front of Sherlock.

Despite everything, it was a sight that took Sherlock’s breath away, and he gaped very unlike himself, and then proceeded to chastise himself for the momentary lapse of expression.

His eyes followed the span of the dome that covered them, like a glowing, translucent umbrella of gold light, while the ten columns bore down on it, and started to bash onto its curve repeatedly like hammers. With each thump of a column, Stephen hissed in pain, his hands trembling with effort, muscles taut, veins ridging his neck. The surface of the shield rippled in the impact of every hit.

Meanwhile, Wong was attempting to break more of the runes entrapping him, while also repeatedly sending purple Mandalas with his free palm to weaken Stephen’s protective dome.

“Hes- hes trying to get you out, before the columns crush both of us,” Stephen hissed, as the columns came down harder, “He needs you in one piece.”

“Doctor Strange,” came Sherlock’s cautious voice.

Stephen opened his eyes, and they seemed to glow bluer in the gold light. He looked down at his doppelganger who stared back, curls of black hair spilt around his head on the floor from where he lay.

“The amulet on his arm,” Sherlock spoke as he raised himself on his elbows, “It wasn’t there when we met him earlier in your library, it looks like the source of his feral state so shouldn’t you should be taking it off?”

Stephen huffed as two columns bore down together on his shield, making him wince, “I’ve already tried that, but I can’t remove it until he is unconscious and that’s what I was trying to do this whole time; knocking him out.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes as he quipped, “I thought you were the Sorceror Supreme; aren’t you supposed to be the most powerful wizard or the sort?”

Stephen glared at him from above. He dropped his face low, almost touching noses with Sherlock as he hissed, “I _am_ , and there is a reason why Wong is my second hand; he is formidable. Besides, we would not be in this situation if you’d just stayed where you should have been!”

For a moment they just glared at each other, as the columns continued stomping on Stephen’s shield, sending ripples across it that reflected in their faces.

Timing himself according to the pattern he observed in the columns that came down on them and Wong’s Mandalas, Stephen suddenly placed his elbow on his knee for support to transfer all the weight to it. He removed his other hand off the shield and flung a disk of gold at Wong’s direction, which sliced through his protective dome and caught the man off-guard. It hit Wong across his temple, and instantaneously knocked him unconscious, his head lolling back, his free hand falling limp, and the columns above Stephen and Sherlock stilled mid blow with a groan of effort.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Stephen gasped silently, letting go of his shield which blinked and dissolved. He fell onto his elbows and then altogether crashed down on the detective in a heap of relief, the Cloak enveloping them.

Quickly, Stephen raised his head off Sherlock’s chest, and they locked eyes for a singular moment.

Sherlock’s eyes whizzed momentarily around Stephen’s face, scanning in a moment’s notice.

_No prosthetics on the skin, no scent or sight of makeup, the pores are visible, facial hair is real. And I see what the Woman meant about the cheekbones. The wound on his cheek is…, the wound is real too, and so is the blood, a very dedicated performer aren't we? No contact lens used, but they’ve got the flecks of yellow in my sectoral hetrochromia correct, interesting-_

Realising he could be caught deducing, the detective supplied, “Getting comfortable, are we, Doctor?”

Stephen huffed, “You wish. Or maybe you’re simply used to doctors falling on you often,” and scrambled off him to his feet, reaching out an open trembling palm for Sherlock, which the detective accepted.

“What are you implying?” Sherlock frowned, standing up, and dusting his coat to smooth out the folds.

Stephen flat out ignored Sherlock.

Panting a little and wincing at the amount of exertion his shoulders received from supporting the shield, Stephen walked over to Wong carefully. Sherlock quietly came up from behind to watch.

Stephen put out an open palm directed at Wong’s arm where sat the amulet, and a Mandala formed round it, controlled by the Sorceror. Slowly, it gripped the ornament and tugged it down until it came off with a click.

Using his free hand, Stephen conjured a small, hollow sphere of translucent gold and sent it to encase the amulet carefully. It remained suspended and subdued inside said sphere.

Making the sphere float in front of him, Stephen crossed his hands at his chest, right in front of the medallion. Sherlock watched as Stephen moved his hands away fluidly, and the Eye of Agamotto glowed, its intricate metal details turning like gears and its decorative parts unravelling to reveal a single, glowing gem inside, with its brilliant, green light.

“What is that?” Sherlock asked carefully.

“The Time Stone,” Stephen breathed.

Sherlock discreetly rolled his eyes at the name.

Stephen carefully directed his shaking open palms at the sphere, and this time the Mandalas spinning at his wrists were a neon green, corresponding to the stone at his chest. Pulling up his left palm near his face, he moved his extended right palm in a slow sweep to the left, and the amulet in the sphere buzzed, and spat, and hissed, as it finally shuddered in defeat.

Sherlock frowned as he witnessed a sort of reverse process of the amulet being made; the designed etchings changed to rough carvings and then dissolved altogether, the metal reduced itself to ore, and the glow of purple in it died feebly.

All that remained in the sphere were rocks which then they disappeared.

Stephen closed the Eye with his crossed hands again, and the green glow died out. He then directed his open palm at the sphere. His fingers curled into a fist, and the sphere reduced into a small shiny spark, dissolving into nothing.

Sherlock pursed his lips.

_I suppose we don’t appreciate VFX artists and animators quite enough, do we; that was brilliantly rendered. How many people do they have in their team? It has to be some vast network of professionals. International, no doubt._

Amidst the flurry of rubble littering the floor around them, a piece of broken China nearby caught Sherlock’s attention; it lay on the floor, its remnant gold paint glistening. He discreetly picked it up to inspect it, and it had one delicately painted rune still retained from the cup it broke off from. He narrowed his eyes at it thoughtfully.

Sherlock looked around again; no projectors or screens. It was starting to really annoy him.

_How does one project anything without a screen, or any hologram projectors? What are the alternatives?_

Until, suddenly, a thought crossed his mind as he watched Stephen sweep a hand carefully over the unconscious Wong, causing a rippling sheen of shimmering light to wash over the man’s bulk.

_Of course._

Sherlock’s eyes widened _._

_OF COURSE!! I’ve been an IDIOT! A BUMBLING IDIOT!! BLAST!!_

Stephen glanced at him with narrow eyes. Sherlock looked back at him, as still as a statue; his face not betraying a single emotion, despite his pulse having raised to heightened frenzy,

“Let’s go, Mr Holmes, we have no time to lose,” Stephen spoke, moving away and once again making his portal.

Sherlock bit down a wild smile of excitement from blooming on his face, as he looked at the unconscious Wong.

“What about your friend?” Sherlock asked offhandedly as Stephen materialised the portal, showing Everett and John in it, who were looking back at them anxiously.

“He’ll be fine; those are protection spells he can break out of once he’s awake,” Stephen answered, and then gestured to the portal, “After you, Mr Holmes.”

Sherlock set his jaw, recalling the ugly nausea he experienced every time he stepped over one of these, and this time he walked through with careful purpose, and felt only the slightest pull at his navel.

He was now in the circular chamber again.

Sherlock saw the Sorceror step in from his peripheral vision and make a beeline for the table, and the portal closed behind him noisily. Everett joined him at the table.

“Sherlock!” came John's voice as he advanced to Sherlock who looked a little glazed over. John just about reached him as he hissed, “What the _hell_ were you thinking, what happened to playing along-”

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock seized the shorter man by the upper arms with his long fingers and flit his eyes wildly between John’s, “I’ve figured it out!”

John looked beyond startled, all his irritation fallen off his face to be replaced by astound surprise as he looked up at an excited Sherlock, “What? Do you mean-”

Sherlock looked over John’s shoulder to see that the Sorceror and Agent were engaged in a conversation as the former hurriedly ‘prepared the spell for the ritual’.

“You were right, John; we are not drugged, but we are under the influence of something else entirely. There is a reason why I couldn’t find any kind of physical proof for any of the 'magic' we have been experiencing; it’s because we aren’t here at all!”

“What?!” John spat.

“John, have you heard of VR? Virtual Reality? It’s a kind of advanced technology that transports the viewer to fabricated environments designed by game developers.”

“Yes, I’m aware what VR is-”

“Last month, Mycroft had mentioned something about a company named Occulus developing a VR Headset that allows the viewer sitting comfortably in a room to experience vast worlds visually, without moving a muscle,” Sherlock’s face lit up with infectious excitement, “The company is going to launch a fund raiser for the headset in August of this year, and Mycroft said he’d be investing in it, because he saw in it the potential to train his operatives, and that he is assembling his own engineering team to collaborate with them in secret, to build something much more comprehensive and practical. I don’t know whether this is Mycroft or not, but I suspect we are currently in a demo simulation, where we are probably sat somewhere in a lab, hooked onto a computer and its program is running this intensive interactive world for us.”

“Wait, _wait, Sherlock_ ,” John shook his head in confusion, Sherlock let go of him to run his hands through his black curls, sighing in relief that he’d cracked the enigma.

“Sherlock, you’re telling me that we are not real?? That you and I are projections?! This is worse than us being fictional characters!!” John’s face warped in absolute bewilderment.

“No, John! We are real, our minds are, we are indeed talking to each other, but what we are experiencing is fabricated, to make us feel immersed in another reality; a _virtual_ reality. All the magic, John, I witnessed it up close, it’s very much animated and CGI.”

“But, Sherlock, I’d read about VR, it’s visually simulated with sounds at the most. But we smelt things, _felt_ things; I’m sure I felt _all kinds_ of things!” John frowned agitatedly, flexing his cured left hand, remembering the woodsy incense, the feel of the warm metal of the Eye, the soft fabric of Stephen’s robe-

Sherlock smirked down at his companion, “John, what we as the public are aware of is only the tip of the iceberg; before a type of technology is released to the public, it spends years working on covert operatives and missions for the government and a system of private organisations. This very moment, there are untold advancements being made and used underground, without us knowing at all, until they want us to, and by then, they would have moved on to something more advanced; they’re always ahead of us, John. I’m sure at this point, VR has been polished to near perfection. I saw Stephen Strange at a hair’s distance away from me and he is not wearing prosthetics; he has been painstakingly constructed digitally to look like me.”

John gaped up at him in disbelief.

Sherlock’s blue eyes bore into John’s head as he stressed on his points eagerly, “They must have taken months to prepare this small act! They have simulated _everything_ here; the environment and the textures, and it influences all our senses, be it our vision, hearing, olfactory responses, taste reception, touch sensitivity, and I presume our hormones levels are being monitored. We are in an immersive experiment, John!”

“ _Jesus Christ_ , Sherlock,” John looked down at his friend’s neck as a sinking feeling of doom swept inside him, “Do you- do you think, do you think they’re recording what we are seeing and doing from the start?!”

“Obviously,” Sherlock nodded, as he saw Stephen gesture to them as he spoke to Everett. Sherlock added, “They’d go through the footage to study how we react to stimuli and analyse our subsequent responses. It’s an experiment, John; after all this time, I thought you’d have observed enough of my own experiments to know the basics.”

John gaped at him, “And they’d, they’d show us? The footage?” after which he spat, “Do they even have our consent to be their lab rats?!”

“I’m sure we were willing participants; Mycroft wouldn’t get us in without my consent, and I’d have made sure to proceed only on the condition I get to see the raw footage afterwards. And I think the need for us to _not_ know we are in a simulation is a part of extracting the most candid reactions. And if it’s not all Mycroft, well, I’ll get my hands on it anyway. Besides, there's also a possibility that they are running a live feed; they're watching us react as we speak. And coming to this conclusion probably the end goal; me figuring out this is a simulation is the cue for us to leave, which is why Doctor Dearest over there is 'sending' us back,” Sherlock chuckled a little, "To think this was all just a very polished game! Mycroft is being quite creative these days." He adjusted his coat, a smug look painting his face as he looked around to potential points where the simulation would have camera eyes.

"A live feed? As in they see it as it happens? In real-time?"

"Yes John, do keep up."

John gaped at Sherlock like a statue; his stomach turned as a bolt of pure panic tore through him, remembering his little exchange with Stephen earlier and the things he’d shared, about Sherlock, and himself, and his own advances-

“Oh my _God_ ,” John groaned, smacking his hands onto his face, “ _Oh my GOD_ -”

“What, what is it?!” Sherlock frowned as he peered at the distressed doctor who seemed to be having some sort of crisis, “John? Is this too much for your simple mind to process-”

John reached out and grabbed the detective's coat by the lapels in a sudden movement, tugging him very close, startling him into silence.

“ _Shut up_ , Sherlock,” John hissed into his face, eyes zipping wild between the detective’s, “This is not how I thought you’d find out _, Christ,_ help me, I thought you would _never!_ ”

John inhaled deeply through his nose as his body shook with increased panic and embarrassment.

“Find what?” Sherlock snapped, in genuine confusion.

John looked at him with a million emotions dancing all at once, the depth of his stare was making Sherlock feel like he was missing something crucial.

“Sherlock, this is the one time I really wish your bloody deduction is absolutely wrong-”

“Why in the world would you wish that?! Would you rather believe the 'fictional character from another universe' theory?!”

A sudden voice interrupted them.

“Hey! Guys, it’s ready, c’mon, chop chop!” said Everett as he walked up to them, while looking at his phone, “We need to hurry; the Rogues are regrouping upstairs, the explosions have stopped, it’s just the calm before… the… storm...,” he trailed off when he looked up, his eyes narrowing, having caught the Englishmen, once again, in a very intimate conversation.

Sherlock challenged him with a look that clearly conveyed he didn’t want a remark.

John let go off Sherlock’s coat abruptly, his ears were a brilliant red and he was having difficulty facing either of them, so instead, focused his attention to the familiar leather of his shoes.

Everett sent Sherlock a secret smile, before he turned away, expecting the two to follow him as he walked back to the Sorceror Supreme. The three men quickly approached Stephen who was poised with his hands in the odd hand gestures from earlier.

“Gentlemen, that spot over there from before, please,” Stephen spoke, sweating a little as he maintained a calm posture.

Sherlock and John stood, side by side, directly opposite Stephen from across the table.

“I need you both to remember the false memories I asked you about earlier,” Stephen spoke.

Sherlock interjected, “And you say that I will remember, only exactly what I’m choosing to remember?”

“Yes. Visualise all the details as clearly as you can; the more vivid the details, the better I can imprint them. You can start the moment I give you the go to.”

John nodded, despite feeling a little foolish and awkward, torn between Sherlock's lovely deduction and his own understanding of their predicament.

Sherlock looked on straight ahead at Stephen.

Stephen materialized a small Mandala right above Sherlock’s and John’s heads each. The Mandalas were spinning slowly, like drones, waiting to gather the imagery from them.

“You may begin,” Stephen prompted.

“Could help if you closed your eyes,” Everett added.

John nodded again, closing his eyes, visualizing his hotel room, with its minimalist interior design and sleek furniture. He constructed a scene like in a play, yet it came out fragmented because of the excitement he was in; he imagined himself waking up, brushing, showering, dressing, having breakfast with Sherlock, before walking to the Entertainment Club, looking around, holding the long cue as he laughed with a fuzzy face he didn’t bother naming, shooting a white ball perfectly, having a small drink at the bar counter, walking out of the Club a little slower, swiping his keycard to open the door of his room, falling onto his bed, switching on the telly with the remote, and the screen showing the weather forecast before he switched the channels, and everything became fuzzy and black.

John opened his eyes, and Stephen was smiling at him reassuringly. He smiled back and then turned to look at Sherlock who stood ramrod straight, hands behind his back, eyes closed; his animated eyeballs were moving rapidly under his closed lids as if he were watching a movie.

John knew, without preamble, that the man was busy constructing his false memory with impeccable detail and precision, about him and his pirate dog.

A blink later, Sherlock was staring straight at Stephen, who nodded in confirmation.

Both Englishmen looked up above their heads and watched as the Mandalas that were spinning above their heads zoomed away to Stephen, who reached out, willing the disks to sit on his open palms. He brought each Mandala to the respective hair strand on the table, and the disks of gold melted away into glittery sparkles absorbed by the hair.

Stephen closed his eyes and summoned a set of seven glowing Mandalas which formed a concentric ring between his outstretched hands, before gliding away and positioning themselves flat above the strands, realigning themselves one on top of the other with a few feet’s worth of intervals, their centres aligned along a vertical axis.

The disks were spinning, like vinyls records, at different speeds. Stephen then carefully crossed his hands at his chest and moved them away, opening the Eye of Agamotto as the black and blond strands of hair glowed yellow under the disks.

John gaped as the Eye revealed a bright green gem inside. The new Mandalas that formed at Stephen’s wrists like spinning bracelets were now the same bright green. He reached out his hands and swept them in a calculated gesture from the hair on the tablet and up the pillar in one fluid motion, and all the golden disks turned furiously, like dials come to life.

A sudden hiss sounded as one of the spinning gold Mandala disks turned green and stopped spinning, while the rest continued.

And then another and yet another, and finally the last of the seven disks became green and stilled they seemed to lock down.

Stephen smiled as he let out the breath he had been holding, “The spell has located to your coordinates,” he looked at the two dubious men.

The strands of hair sizzled as they dissolved into small sparkles of white and gold, and the pillar of Mandalas started to grow in size.

Stephen gestured with his hand, “Gentlemen, please step back.”

Everett obeyed with a nod, Sherlock and John wordlessly scuttled back, and Stephen himself moved away, as the pillar of Mandalas grew from the size of a dish plate to something as wide as an elevator, the brilliant green it emitted washed the entire room and lit all their faces, throwing dark shadows dancing at the edges.

Stephen swept his hand carefully, and the large heavy table moved away from under the Mandalas with a groan.

In a moment notice, the seven Mandalas collapsed into one large disk containing beautifully detailed squares and triangles, and abruptly fell onto the floor, imprinting its design with a sizzle in glowing neon green on the concrete floor.

“Quickly,” Stephen looked up at the Englishmen, “Step inside the spell circle!”

Sherlock and John looked at each other, before stepping forward, and after a pause of hesitation, they stepped over the runes to stand in its empty centre wide enough to encase them both without them stepping on any of the green lines or curves.

The runes in the Mandala glowed bright, before springing up and splitting into the seven disks again, encasing Sherlock and John in the middle like a tube. The disks weren’t spinning and were as still as death.

John peered from the wide gap between two disks to look at Stephen, who smiled reassuringly.

Sherlock studied the glowing green rings, the neon green catching in the hollows of his eyes and cheeks.

Stephen nodded at Everett, who casually approached them. Together, both men stood just outside the tube of disks.

Stephen looked at the ceiling for a moment, as if reading something in the air, “Wong is up again, and he’s guarding the Sanctum; we have time,” before turning his attention to the Englishmen, “The spell will take you home the moment I activate it. Fair warning, you’re both going to feel a little nauseous, and it’ll only be ten seconds worth of a journey, but it will feel like ten minutes, so brace yourselves. The coordinates should land you in your hotel rooms where you stay in your New York. And once you’re safe home, you will neither remember anything nor anyone from our reality, and you will wake up from what you will assume is three hours of sleep rather than a visit to an alternate dimension, and you will remember only what you fabricated just now.”

John nodded, suddenly whiplashed with the instructions. Stephen then abruptly turned to Sherlock, and held out his shaking hand.

Sherlock stared back like a mannequin; unyielding and neutral.

Stephen blinked back, persistent, hand waiting.

Sherlock reached out his hand, extended out his palm and shook the Sorceror’s hand firmly.

Stephen smiled beside himself, mirth dancing in his face, “Mr Holmes, I appreciate and return the sentiment, but that wasn’t what I’m asking for.”

“Wasn’t it?” Sherlock asked, tipping his chin up almost defensively, posture straight.

“You know it wasn’t.”

Both identical men held a painfully tedious gaze, their hands still held in a formal grasp.

John and Everett stared confusedly between the tall men.

“I’m the Sorceror Supreme, Mr Holmes; did you really think I wouldn’t notice?” he smiled, as he put out his other, unoccupied hand towards Sherlock.

Sherlock’s eyes turned into twin slits of annoyance and he huffed, giving in. Looking away, he dug his own free hand into the pocket of his coat and pulled out the small broken piece of white china. and dropped it onto Stephen’s extended palm.

Both men pulled their hands away.

Stephen smiled at the piece sitting on his palm, closing his fingers into a fist. He waved his fist and the object disappeared.

John looked from Stephen to Sherlock incredulously.

“I know you don’t believe, Mr Holmes, but I can’t let you take home a talisman from here as proof; I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sherlock mused nonetheless, “I’m plenty sure the status reports will speak for themselves.”

"I see," Stephen gave him a strange, cryptic smile that Sherlock mirrored with terrifying accuracy.

Both John and Everett shared a look of silence.

Stephen coolly broke his gaze and fixed it onto Sherlock’s companion instead.

“John,” he smiled warmly, his voice softening a register, “I’m afraid when you return, so will what I undid to your hand.”

John looked down at his steady left hand and then up at Stephen, to give him his most confident smile, “That’s alright, Stephen; thank you for letting me experience not having the tremors for a while.”

John reached out and Stephen gladly shook hands with him from in-between the green disks.

“And what about you?” asked Sherlock suddenly, “We alter our memories, but will you be keeping yours?”

Stephen nodded, “Of course I will have to; it comes within the bargain of duties as a Master of Mystics Arts.”

“And for Agent Ross?” Sherlock asked, with a sneak of a smirk dancing at his lips, “Does he get to keep his interesting memories of today?”

Everett glared at Sherlock, his ears slowly warming with tints of red.

John looked between them, curiously.

“Yes, he can keep them,” Stephen answered, “Unless he wants to remove them, but I don’t see why he would want that,” he turned to cast his friend a questioning glance.

“No, you’re right, I don’t need them removed,” Everett told Stephen, before throwing a side eye at Sherlock, “I wouldn’t want to forget meeting my childhood _heroes_.”

The mocking sarcasm shimmered in Everett’s voice, but underneath it John glimpsed a little bit of genuine sentiment. John smiled to himself, as Everett and Sherlock shared an affirming nod.

“Well. I guess it’s time,” Stephen sighed, stepping back.

Everett reached out, and firmly shook hands with John and Sherlock, before stepping back.

“Deep breaths, boys,” he called out, just as Stephen raised his hands to initiate the activation; palms out and extended towards the tube of suspended green disks encasing the two doppelgangers inside.

Stephen stared straight at them as his eyes glowed green in the light of the Time Stone that came to life, igniting two beautiful, green Mandalas at Stephen’s hands.

The Mandalas pulsed slowly.

Immediately, John and Sherlock observed the disks around them respond by glowing in the same pattern and starting to move. The disks spun slow at first, picking up pace, each at a different speed, until they all spun incredibly fast and in sync together, reduced to thin, green blurs in the air, whipping a small breeze from inside. Both men sucked in a deep inhale.

John’s cowlick and Sherlock’s curls danced in the agitated air, as did the extremities of their clothes.

John looked up, only to gape at the sight he did not expect; the ‘spell tube' shot up endlessly and infinitely like a neon-green shaft running up forever, surpassing the already unreachable ceiling of the circular room and into the eerie nothingness.

For moment, it was like looking up for the mouth of a well he was trapped in but the walls never ended.

Seized by a sudden shot of panic in his chest, he turned to Sherlock to see that the detective was staring into the void of the ceiling as well; a strange, hypnotized expression danced on his face.

The last glimpse John caught of the Sorceror and CIA Agent was of a smile and a salute respectively, before all sight from outside the tube dissolved in bright shimmers, and they were encased in darkness save for the green bands of blurred light as the disks continued to spin fast, this time accompanied by an eerie humming noise that became louder and louder until it seemed to be vibrating right from the centre of his chest.

A gasp left John as he felt nauseating weightlessness; the ground from under their feet gave away, to extend into another void below, like an endless pit to the centre of the earth.

It struck them that they were suspended in a sort of limbo in an endless vertical tube.

Instinctively, they snatched out their respective arms to hold hands, their contrasting fingers entangled tight in a grip of excitement laced with a touch of fear of the unknown.

“ _Jesus_ ,” John gasped in a hissing whisper, trying not to look down by squeezing his eyes shut.

“Not real, John,” Sherlock warned, trying to mask his own breathless discomfort.

“Not the time to discuss atheism, Sherlock.”

Sherlock chuckled deeply despite himself, as he answered while gazing down at the voided bottom, “No, John, I mean, all of this; it’s all a sensory painting of sorts, an immersive experience of an artistic feat. Brilliantly done too. Remind me to pay my complements to the designers.”

John let out a shaky exhale, “I don’t know what to believe anymore, Sherlock, but I’ll tell you one thing.”

“Yes, John?” Sherlock turned to look down at his short companion, even as he felt his vision fuzz around the edges and his stomach float absurdly in his abdomen.

John raised their held hands as he looked up at the detective, with brilliant blue eyes glimmering neon in the wash of green.

“When we return like this, people are definitely going to talk.” 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take a shot every time you read the word mandala-


	7. Is On

John sat up from his bed, groaning as he rubbed his hand into his eyes to wake his lids. His mouth was sealed shut with the deep sleep and his tongue numb, so he reached out blindly for the glass of water he sometimes kept at his bedside, only to meet nothing at his fingertips.

Registering his surroundings at a sloth’s pace, he peered around through stubborn eyelids to realise he wasn’t in his room in 221B Baker Street.

The clean hotel room was dead silent.

“Right,” he mumbled as memory returned in sluggish blobs of facts, “Mycroft, hmm, Mycroft and his, hmnnn, American case, right,” swinging his legs over the edge of the single bed to sit up and stretch, satisfyingly popping his bones into place.

That’s when he noticed he wasn’t in his pajamas.

Plucking at his shirt thoughtfully through the final veils of sleep, he peered up at the walls, locating a fancy minimalist clock; ones that don’t have the bloody numbers in them and was basically just a slab of glass with two shiny spindles pointing arsewards.

It took him a few moments, but he read it as five to one in the afternoon.

“Hm? Must have, must have dozed off, after breakfast and…” he blinked, recollecting images, “A few games of Pool…”

Mid a giant relieving yawn, the door to his room was thrown open with a crash, and a tall, languid figure skid into the room.

 _“John!”_ barked the baritone, as John looked up to register it's owner, Sherlock.

The doctor scratched the back of his blond head idly, barely bothered by the ruckus.

“‘Morning, Sherlock.”

“Astute observation, John,” came the distracted reply as the detective immediately leapt into the room, and in three strides he planted himself right in front of the seated John and proceeded to abruptly drop onto his knees.

“Sherlock what-” John stared with wide eyes, suddenly awake.

The man didn’t say a word as he grabbed John’s face in his large hands before the later could react and started turning it this way and that, inspecting his head as if it were a potential vegetable under scrutiny for ripeness. John’s brain swam from the movements, and he pawed in annoyance at Sherlock’s relentless bony hands.

“Do you remember what just happened?” Sherlock asked urgently.

“Yes, I woke up and you stormed in here and now you are well on the way to liquefying my brain, can you please _stop?_ ”

Sherlock continued to inspect his face rapidly, “And before you slept?”

“I went out for Pool and watched telly.”

There was a veritable pulse of silence and stillness that let John get his bearings.

Sherlock tipped down John’s face out of the blue.

“What are you-”

“Hush now, John,” Sherlock silenced him, as he let go of one hand to pull out a penlight from his pocket, and without warning, he shone it directly into John’s eyes.

 _“Good God, Sherlock!”_ John yelped, dodging his face away, “What is the _matter_ with you?!” he shoved at the detective.

“Normal pupil response; affirming,” Sherlock mumbled as he dropped the light, and pulled at John’s collar to finger at the skin of his neck, “No visible pricks either.”

“The only visible prick here is you! Breathing down my face first thing I wake up! Can you please pop a mint _, Jesus;_ did _you_ just wake up??” John grumbled, pushing the man’s hands away before parts of his body biologically and shamelessly responded to all the... whatever it was that Sherlock was doing.

 _Fondling_ , his brain helpfully supplied.

Sherlock snapped his mouth shut and sat back on his hunches thoughtfully, taking in the sight of disgruntled, drowsy doctor.

Bouncing back up on his feet, Sherlock paced around the room, hands pressed together, balanced against his Cupid's bow.

“Yes, John, I just woke up.”

He paused to spin around and look at John, watching as John visibly scanned Sherlock, taking in his black curls tossed from sleep and the darkness under his narrow eyes, and the telltale wrinkles in his business suit. The facts slowly registered in John's awakening brain.

“You woke up _now?_ In the afternoon?”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock waited.

“But you never wake up so late; either you don’t sleep the night before at all, or you wake at the unholy hour of six in the morning and you never sleep after!”

“Exactly, and I surely slept last night, John, if you so kindly remember the celebratory drinks after the case.”

Which, John remembered, was an interesting debacle involving one too many vodka shots, a Twister mat, a doozy, giggly doctor and a drunk, dandy detective lamenting the subsequent creases in his impeccable suit playing the 'infernal acrobatic crawl' of a game.

John’s pinched, frowning face suddenly went lax in dawning realization, his eyes going wide and mouth falling open into a loose ‘O’; a sight Sherlock secretly adored witnessing.

“You think we’ve been drugged to sleep; that’s why you were checking me for symptoms, and injection points!”

“Yes. And excuse the intrusion; I needed to make sure you retained any memory of what happened last in case you were drugged; the case we solved may have consequences unforeseen and enemies made indirectly.”

John frowned again.

“Sherlock, I distinctly remember going out for breakfast and then the Entertainment Club to play Pool. Then I came here, watched the telly, and fell asleep. That’s all that happened.”

“And I woke up and the last thing I remember is being in my Mind Palace...” Sherlock trailed off thoughtfully, fingers tapping at his lips rhythmically, conveying his confusion.

“What? What is it?” asked John, inquisitive at the way Sherlock looked so baffled, which in itself was a rare occurrence.

“I was preoccupied with something in my Mind Palace; something I usually wouldn’t do unless I was under some kind of duress and needed to calm myself.”

“And what’s that?” John asked, before immediately recoiling, “Or you don’t have to tell me if its private-”

Sherlock shot him a chastising glare. “I was playing with my family dog.”

“Your dog??”

“It’s absurd because I would not resort to it on a usual basis.”

“ _Your_ _dog??_ ”

“Something very daunting must have occurred here, for me to do that in my Mind Palace.”

“A family dog??” John mused open-mouthed, “Didn’t peg you for a dog person. Hell, I didn’t even peg you for an animal person!”

“ _John,”_ Sherlock glared at him pointedly.

“Right, uh,” John rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly, clearing his throat and stretching a sore arm, “So, before you fell asleep you must have been in some kind of situation then. Maybe a dream? Something disturbing?”

"I don't 'dream', John." 

Both men shared a long look of cluelessness.

“So, then, what could have happened? Maybe someone’s been stalking us from yesterday? Spiked out breakfast?”

“No, I checked,” Sherlock shook his head, frowning at the window of John’s room. He then proceeded to dash for said window and inspected the latches and the glass beading, and the wall around it for marks.

“And no signs of breaking and entering either.”

John groaned as he cracked his neck, “What would they want from us, though, we didn’t carry anything valuable-” and a sudden thought made him pause questioningly, before anxiously lifting up a corner of his shirt and running his hand on his abdomen for stitches.

Sherlock spun around, eyes zipping over John whose hand was suggestively buried under his shirt.

“Well?”

“Vital, expensive organs intact, I’m relieved.”

“Good; I was hoping I wouldn’t have to search you myself.”

“What-”

“John,” Sherlock set about pacing again, “I don’t know what they may have taken from us, given we carried very little and all the money on us is also intact, but there has to be a reason for-”

“Sherlock-”

“If not taken, they must have planted something instead!”

“Sherlock, listen-” John waved a hand to catch the distracted man’s attention, “Or, _or,_ just maybe we are overthinking everything and no one drugged us; maybe you were just tired from yesterday and happened to think of your family dog whom I’d never heard of, before genuinely falling asleep, because you’re a human being, and human beings get tired?”

“I slept yesterday!” Sherlock snapped with a tight glare.

John got up and stretched again, “Sometimes people need more than just a few hours of sleep, Sherlock. And yes, even Consulting Detectives.”

Before the said Consulting Detective could counter, John turned to his minimalist wardrobe, fumbling with its lack of a handle, and managed to fish out his jacket, “Now, it’s a lovely day, and I’m going to step out and see a bit of New York, maybe the Statue of Liberty, or Times Square before Mycroft sends us back to Baker Street, so unless you want to sit here and mope about, you’re welcome to join me.”

John looked pointedly at Sherlock who was now stationed at the window again, staring out the glass dramatically.

“I’ll join you in the lobby.”

“Good, I’ll freshen up a bit,” John nodded, before placing his jacket on the bed and moving into the bathroom, the door shutting behind him with a crisp click.

Left alone, Sherlock continued to look at the blue sky. The gears in his brain whirred ceaselessly as he slipped into deep thought.

He contemplated about his Mind Palace.

His Mind Palace was his own; every nook and cranny built by him, and there was no inch of it he didn’t know well. It was his safe space; his kingdom, his playground, his solace. Everything that resided in the Palace was placed there by his own volition, intention and decision.

Sherlock pursed his lips as his eyes closed, to retrace exactly what he remembered about his trip to his Mind Palace before he had allegedly fallen asleep.

He had walked down the staircases, along the intricate corridors, and out the large door, into the wide, open field of green grass, where an old Irish Setter had sat, its silken mahogany-red coat shining in the sunlight, sleepy eyes looking expectantly at him.

He had walked to it and sat down on the grass, rubbing behind the dog’s ears affectionately as he was slobbered on with enthusiasm.

He remembered a piece of paper that peeked out from his dog’s bandana collar. He tugged it out of the collar.

He remembered looking at it; a small rectangular piece of parchment, crisp and yellowed, with a neat, cursive handwriting etching in black ink a few words he’d never voluntarily recalled ever seeing until then. He had given the paper a sniff, while the dog nosed at his cheek. He remembered the faint scent he had registered; a mysterious, exotic blend of incense.

Sherlock opened his eyes, coming out of his reverie. He stared thoughtfully across John’s neat room. Finalising his decision, he moved away from the window, walked upto the bathroom door and rapped his knuckles on it impatiently.

“John! Change of plans!”

John stepped out, wiping his face on a small complementary towel as he sighed at his companion, “What now, Sherlock?”

“I’ve decided where we need to go first,” came the reply as Sherlock grabbed a wet wipe from John’s open travel bag and promptly ran two swipes of it across his face before throwing it into the small dustbin near the bed.

“What?” John asked as he paced the towel on its rung near the door, “Where?”

“Greenwich Village, come along!” Sherlock scooped up John’s jacket and flung it at him.

“Greenwich village? Why?” John sounded beyond baffled as he caught his jacket and put it on.

“Oh, don’t worry, John, we’ll have time to go see your statue and square,” Sherlock peered at the mirror, ruffling his ebony curls to life, smoothly grabbing a small mint from the complementary sweets placed at the dressing table and popping it into his mouth, “Just a little address I need to visit and we will be off.”

“Alright, where then, in this Greenwich Village?” John tied his shoes and grabbed his phone and key card.

Sherlock was already at the door with one hand on the sleek disk of a knob. He paused a moment, and looked over his shoulder with the darndest secretive twinkle in his eye.

“177A Bleecker Street.”

-The End-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're at the end of this story!  
> Thank you to everyone who read, commented and left kudos; it kept me going and means a lot!  
> And many thanks to Enterthetadpole for constant enthusiasm with my chapters and the loveliest conversation late into the night fangirling and discussing about sherlock. Im glad I could meet you through this fic <3  
> Thank you once again, my dear friend C, for making this fic happen! <3


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